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Dam of The Rittenhouse Mill in Germantown, Penn. 

Site of the First Paper-Mill in the United States, 1690 



A HISTORY 

OF 



PAPER-MANUFACTURING 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES, 1690-1916 



BY 



LYMAN HORACE WEEKS 



Author of "An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press," "Legal 

and Judicial History of New York," "Prominent Families 

of New York," "Book of Bruce," etc., etc. 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

The Loekwood Trade Journal Company 

1916. 






Copyright, 1916, 

By The Lockwood Trade JourDal Company 

All rights reserved. 



APR II 1917 

'CIA457981 



/ 



* 






PREFACE 



MANY books have been written concerning the purely 
technical sides of paper-making and much about 
the origin and history of the craft among the peoples of 
the old world. Also there have been considerable accounts 
of special features of it in this country; descriptions of 
individual mills ; sketches of manufacturers, inventors and 
scientists ; considerations of the introduction and improve- 
ment of new methods, new materials and new machinery 
and their influence; records of organizations, and so on. 
All this latter, however — though wholly admirable, inter- 
esting and valuable in itself — has been of a desultory and 
disconnected character: mainly chapters in books, maga- 
zines and newspapers; papers read before business asso- 
ciations, conventions and societies ; addresses and discus- 
sions in legislative bodies, and essays and treatises in scien- 
tific periodicals. 

This History covers the field differently. It is the only I 
attempt that has been made to bring into one complete, 
compact narrative all the material facts relating to the 
industry and to present in an exhaustive and comprehen- 
sive manner, on the purely historical side, the annals of this 
branch of American manufacturing, from the erecting of 
the first little mill in Philadelphia, in 1690, to the opening 
years of .the twentieth century. What has been done in 
this way for coal-mining, agriculture, many branches of 
manufacturing, oil production, the iron and steel industries 
and other American industrial activities has been here 
attempted for paper-making. 

Gathering material for this History has occupied much 
of the time of the author for several years past, in con- 
junction with research along other historical lines. It is 
confidently believed that, in the preparation of the work, 
the ground has been covered broadly and soundly, con- 



VIII PREFACE 

sidering the limitations of the subject and the scanty 
sources of information. The extent of the reading and 
investigation undertaken therewith is, in a measure, indi- 
cated by the authorities consulted, references to which 
have been copiously given. In addition, much has been 
derived from the personal knowledge of individuals who 
have been active in the industry in contemporaneous times. 
Short-comings and errors exist in the work. No one 
can be more conscious of that than the author. Such is 
an unfortunate but an inevitable concomitant of a com- 
pilation of this sort, dependent, as it is, for its subject- 
matter, upon records that, in the remote past most notably, 
are meagre and often unreliable and contradictory. It 
is hoped, however, that any errancy of that kind may not 
materially detract from the interest of the work as a nar- 
rative or from its historical value. If it 4iall have suc- 
ceeded in preserving in enduring form the otherwise 
fugitive records of one of the great industries of the 
United States, and if it may find acceptance as a not un- 
worthy contribution to the literature of American indus- 
trial history, its main purpose will have been substan- 
tially accomplished. 

Lyman Horace Weeks. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER ONE Page 

1 

BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

Three Pioneer Establishments in Pennsylvania — Ritten- 

HOUSE AND De WeES IN GeRMANTOWN AND WlLLCOX IN 

Chester County — William Bradford, the Printer, a 
Promoter of Paper Manufacturing — The Mills of Ritten- 
house and wlllcox became permanent and successful 



CHAPTER TWO 15 

OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

A Second Venture Is Made by Bradford the Printer — First 
Mills Are Established in Massachusetts, Maine, Con- 
necticut, New York and Elsewhere — The Mill of the 
Ephrata German Community in Pennsylvania — Saur, 
Famous Printer of the German Bible, Also Builds a Mill 



CHAPTER THREE 41 

A PAPER POVERTY 

Mills of the Colonial Period Were Few in Number and Poorly 

Equipped — Importations Were Slow and Scant — News- 

' papers Resorted to Curious Makeshifts — Extraordinary 

Scarcity During the Revolution — Legislative Action to 

Encourage Manufacturing and Conserve the Supply 



CONTENTS 



Page CHAPTER FOUR 

57 

EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

Colonial Paper Was All Hand-made — Machinery Unknown — 
Mills Hampered by Difficulty in Procuring Raw Mate- 
rials — Newspapers and Legislatures Implored People to 
Help by Saving Rags — The Early Methods of Manufac- 
turing — Some Prices of Paper in 1729, 1780 and 1792 



77 CHAPTER FIVE 

AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
Slow Industrial Growth of the Nation — Paper-making Still 
Confined Mostly to Pennsylvania, New York, Connecti- 
cut and Massachusetts — New Mills in Those and Other 
States — Legislative Encouragement to Manufacturers — 
First Inventors — Tariff Measures of the Government y 



104 CHAPTER SIX 

INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Mills Increased in Number in the First Decade — Statistics 
from the Census of 1810 and Isaiah Thomas' Estimate — 
Business Depression After the War of 1812 — Tariff Pro- 
tection for Paper — Rags Still Continued to Be Very 
Scarce — Some Prices That Prevailed in 1815 and 1821 



122 CHAPTER SEVEN 

A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY. 

The Famous Ames Manufacturers and Their Work — First 
Mills in Berkshire County, Mass. — Other Mills, Old and 
New, in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Elsewhere — 
Scant Statistics from the Census of 1820 — Old-time Mill 
Equipment and the Old-time Papermakers 



CONTENTS XI 



CHAPTER EIGHT Page 

- 148 
IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

Beginning in Central and Northern New York — Mills That 
Endured Substantially Unchanged for a Hundred Years — 
The Famous Mill of the Gilpin Brothers in Delaware — 
— Planting the Industry in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Kentucky and Tennessee 



CHAPTER NINE 170 

THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

Hollander Engines for Pulp-Beating — Invention of the Four- 
drinier and Its Importation into the United States — 
Americans Invent and Improve Cylinder Machines — Other 
Inventors and Inventions — Radical Changes in Manu- 
facturing Methods Are Gradually Introduced 



CHAPTER TEN 191 

A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

Feeling the Stimulus of the New Machinery — Tariff Agi- 
tation — Mills in the East Grow in Size and Importance 
— The Beginning of the Industry in Indiana and Other 
States — Making Straw- Paper in Columbia County, New 
York — Mill Statistics from the Census of 1840 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 211 

THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Scarcity of the Staple Linen Stock Ever Present — Numerous 
Vegetable Fibres are Tried — Curious Tales of Many Hope- 
ful Experimenters — Straw the First Considerable Addi- 
tion — Finally, Pulp from Wood Comes in and Revolu- 
tionizes Papermaking — The Great Wood Pulp Processes 



XII CONTENTS 



Page CHAPTER TWELVE 

239; 

BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

Changing Conditions Stimulate Manufacturing in New Eng- 
land and the Middle States — First Mills in Fitchburg 
and Holyoke, Massachusetts — Big Increase in Straw- 
Paper Making in New York— Developments of the Black 
River Country — Destruction of the Industry in the South 



314 



270 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 

In the Years Following the Civil War — A Unique Directory of 
1864 — Growth of the Industry in Ohio — Futile Attempts 
to Start Paper-Making in Utah — Founding the Industry 
in the north-west — rapid advancement in holyoke, mas- 
SACHUSETTS- — Some Amazing Prices of that Period 



288 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

MODERN EXPANSION 

Mills Increased in Number and in Size in All Parts of the 
United States — Machinery Expansion — The Rise of Big 
Corporations — New Men, New Methods and New Accom- 
plishments — Growth of Foreign Trade — Exporting is Be- 
gun in Competition for the Markets of the World 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

Latest Census Figures — A Wood-Pulp Issue With Canada — 
Exports From the Dominion Increased — The Great Europ- 
ean War and Its Effects — Scarcity of Paper Stock . and 
Other Materials — A Paper-Famine With Rising Prices 
— A Sectional and State Review of the Industry 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Rittenhouse Mill-Dam 

Third Rittenhouse Mill 

Rittenhouse Water Mark 

Willcox Ivy Mill 

Ivy Mills Water Mark 

Daniel Henchman 

Thomas Hancock 

Samuel Waldo 

Ephrata Mills Water Mark 

Ephrata Mills 

Christopher Leffingwell 

A Printer's Paper Economy 

Nathan Sellers 

Advertisement for Rags 

Interior of an Old Mill 

Eden Vale Mill 

Christopher Gore 

Isaiah Thomas Mill 

Isaiah Thomas . 

Benjamin Franklin 

Robert R. Livingston 

Seth Hawley 

David Ames 

Zenas Crane 

David Carson 

Daniel Vose 

John Roberts 

Seth Bemis 

Caleb Burbank . 

David Humphrey 



Frontispiece 

7 

9 

12 

13 

20 

22 

25 

30 

32 

36 

44 

54 

61 

68 

82 

84 

86 

88 

93 

99 

116 

124 

128 

130 

131 

134 

136 

138 

140 



XIV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Humphreysville Mill .141 


Samuel Phillips 










... 144 


Eckstein Mill . 












. 147 


Nathaniel Rochester 












. 149 


Eagle Mill, Exterior 












: 150 


Eagle Mill, Interior . 












. 151 


George W. Knowlton 












. 154 


Gilpin Mill 












. 158 


Sunnydale Mill, Exterior 












. 164 


Sunnydale Mill, Interior . 












. 166 


Smallest Paper Machine . 












. 177 


John Ames 












. 179 


Peter Adams 












. 181 


William Staniar 












. 183 


Cornelius Van Houten 












. 185 


Lemuel Crehore 












198 


Thomas Rice, Jr. 












200 


James M. Willcox . 












205 


George A. Shryock . 












221 


Hugh Burgess 












227 


Royer's Ford Wood-Pulp Mill 












228 


Benjamin C. Tilghmart 












231 


George N. Fletcher . 












232 


Alpena Pulp-Mill 












233 


Albrecht Pagenstecher 












235 


First Bill for American YVood-I 


5 ulp . 










236 


Curtisville Pulp-Mill 




* 


• 






237 


Elizur Smith .... 




'■ 








242 


Byron Weston 














245 


J. C. Parsons 
















246 


Parsons' Mill 
















247 


Aaron Bagg 
















248 


William Whiting 














249 


James H. Newton 














250 


Wells Southworth 














251 


Carew Mill 














252 


Joseph Carew . 




• 










253 


Alvah Crocker 




* 










254 


G. S. Burbank . 














' 255 


George Bird 
















256 



list of illustration; 


s 


XV 


Charles H. Dexter ...... 


. 258 


Illustrious Remington 










. 261 


B^B. Taggart .... 










. 262 


Martin Nixon .... 










. 264 


William H. Nixon 










. 265 


A Paper-Mill Trade Mark 










. 267 


Joseph McDowell 










. 268 


D. E. Mead .... 










. 276 


A. E. Harding . 










. 278 


Thomas Beckett 










. 278 


Adam Laurie 










. 279 


Thomas Howard 










. 282 


Howard Lockwood . 










. 299 


George F. Steele 










. 300 


William A. Russell . 










. 303 


Arthur C. Hastings . 










. 305 


O. C. Barber . 










. 306 


John G. Luke . 










. 309 


William H. Parsons . 










. 311 


The Oxford Mill . 










. 320 


S. D. Warren . 










. 322 


W. H. Sharp 










323 


VV. N. Caldwell 










. 323 


A. W. Esleeck . 










. 324 


George W. Wheelwright 










. 324 


Mark Hollingsworth . 










. 326 


Edwin R. Redhead . 










. * . 328 


John F. King . 










. 328 


J. A. Outterson . 










. 329 


B. B. Taggart . 










. 329 


Augustus G. Paine . 










. 333 


Bloomfield H. Moore 










. 335 


E. L. Embree . 










. 337 


F. L. Moore 










. 337 


J. A. Kimberly . 










. 340 


G. E. Bardeen . 










. 341 


E. R. Behrend . 










. 341 


A. B. Daniels . . 










. 343 


George A. Whiting . 










. 344 



HISTORY OF PAPER-MANUFACTURING 

CHAPTER ONE 

BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

Three Pioneer Establishments in Pennsylvania — 

RlTTENHOUSE AND De WEES IN GERMANTOWN AND 

Willcox in Chester County — William Bradford, 
the Printer, a Promoter of Paper-Manufactur- 
ing — The Mills of Rittenhouse and Willcox 
Became Permanent and Successful Ventures 

WHEN the American pioneers began their voyaging, 
across the Atlantic to settle in the new world, 
in the seventeenth century, the business of manufac- 
turing paper, as it is known in modern times, had not 
gained much headway in those parts of Europe whence 
they came. The age of papyrus and parchment was, it is 
true, practically at an end after five thousand years of his- 
tory, but paper from rags was slow in coming into general 
use in place thereof. 

Rag paper, first known in China about the beginning 
of the Christian era, was brought to Europe by the 
Saracens in the eighth century. Firmly established in 
Spain the process was there improved until, in the tenth 
and following centuries, Spanish paper became justly 
famous. Gradually artist workmen introduced their craft 
into France, Italy, Austria and Germany, and in those 
countries paper-manufacturing was common by the four- 
teenth century. England and Holland, destined to become 
great paper-manufacturing centers, were laggards in tak- 
ing hold of the industry which was still considered to be 
very much of a mystery. In England, as late as 1690, 
there were few mills and the total product was less than 

1 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

£25,000 in value. Holland had its first paper-mill only a 
few years prior to that date. 

For other reasons also, paper-making was not an early 
occupation of the American colonists. Clearing the wilder- 
ness, trading with the Indians for furs, making farms, es- 
tablishing towns and villages — these were the tasks that, 
in the beginning, pressed most upon the attention of the 
settlers. Their energies were, of necessity, directed to the 
engrossing work of providing shelter, food and clothing for 
themselves, to the exclusion of nearly all else, and primary 
needs were for implements and materials that should serve 
such ends. To a considerable extent the first pilgrims 
brought these things with them and then, in the imme- 
diate subsequent years, continued to import them from 
the old country. But Europe was too far distant in the 
days of the slow sailing vessel, and so, almost at the out- 
set, arose the demand for home industrial enterprises of 
the simplest sort. Rivers furnished abundant water power 
and as soon as possible grist mills, lumber mills and full- 
ing mills were built. Then iron was discovered in Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and elsewhere, and 
mines were opened and furnaces started. Manufacturing 
in the first colonial century was practically confined to 
ship-building yards, a few rude iron furnaces, potasheries, 
fulling, grain and lumber mills, and tanneries. 

Paper was not as yet a vital necessity. Newspapers did 
not exist until after 1700. There were few books except 
those brought from abroad. A printing press was set up 
in Cambridge, in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1638, 
and others in Boston, New York and Philadelphia before 
the end of the century; but the printed output was small, 
less than one thousand books and pamphlets in sixty-two 
years, 1639-1700. Correspondence was not extensive and 
writing was largely left to the ministers and the officials. 
Our forefathers knew little of the manifold other uses and 
demands for paper that were to arise in the years to come. 
Their needs were altogether easily supplied by importing 
from England and Holland. 

Even the starting of the first paper-mill, in 1690, does 
not seem to have been a result of any urgent call from the 

2 



BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

community. Rather it came out of the combination of the 
small needs of a single printer in Philadelphia and the am- 
bition of a newly-arrived German paper-maker ; the printer 
and the paper-maker made an ideal partnership for estab- 
lishing an infant industry in a field that had not yet been 
entered upon. 

Prior to this time it is probable that few, if any, of the 
new Americans, who were mostly from England and Hol- 
land, knew much about paper-making practically. France 
and Germany were then leading paper-making countries 
and neither the French nor the Germans arrived in the 
colonies in any considerable numbers until the late part of 
the seventeenth century. Printing had grown to more sub- 
stantial business importance in Boston than in any other 
colonial center, but even there the need of a paper supply 
independent of importation was not seriously felt ; nor does 
it appear that paper-makers could have been found to run 
a mill even if one had been built. 

The actual beginning of this new enterprise in Phila- 
delphia was in September, 1690, when Robert Turner, 
William Bradford, Thomas Tresse and William Ritten- 
house entered into an agreement with Samuel Carpenter 
for the lease of a tract of land of twenty acres on the banks 
of the Wissahickon creek for a site. The mill was built 
the same year, but the title to the land was not passed 
until February 12, 1706, by which time William Ritten- 
house had become sole owner. By the terms of the lease, 
for nine hundred and ninety years from September 29, 
1690, an annual rental of "five shillings sterling money of 
England" was to be paid. The mill stood in a little ravine 
on the banks of a stream, called Paper-Mill Run, that 
emptied into the Wissahickon creek, through Germantown, 
now a part of the city of Philadelphia, about two miles 
above the junction of the Wissahickon with the Schuylkill 
river. 

Bradford was the moving spirit in this enterprise. He 
had come from England to Pennsylvania for the express 
purpose of setting up a press in Philadelphia. In London 
he had been a skillful printer and his professional abilities 
and forceful personality made him a man of prominence 

3 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and influence in the colony until a falling- out with the 
authorities in 1693 led to his removal to New York where 
he became pre-eminently the first famous American printer 
and publisher. In 1686_ he printed his first book, Kalen- 
darium Pennsylvaniense. Once he was started in busi- 
ness other books and pamphlets came from his shop and 
soon he felt the inconvenience of depending - for his print- 
ing upon such paper as he could bring over from Europe. 
His position placed him in intimate association with the 
leading men of the colony and no doubt his representations 
were influential in bringing the necessary monetary sup- 
port to the undertaking. 

Samuel Carpenter and Robert Turner were men of 
wealth, extensive land owners, and friends and advisers 
of William Penn. Thomas Tresse was a rich iron monger. 

Willem or Wilhelm Ruddinghuysen, or Rittinghuysen, 
or Rittershausen — in English William Rittenhouse — was 
born in 1644 near the city of Miilheim on the river Ruhr, 
in the principality of Broich which lay between the river 
Rhine and Westphalia. It is believed that he was the son 
of George Rittershausen and Maria Hagershoffs. He be- 
longed to a family of distinction, some of whose members 
were prominent in public and professional life. Several of 
his paternal ancestors were paper-makers in Germany and 
Holland and when he, in Amsterdam in 1678, took the 
oath of citizenship there, he subscribed himself, "Willem 
Ruddinghuysen, van Miilheim, papermaker." At one time 
he was in Arnheim, where he probably followed his trade. 
With his sons Nicholas (Claus) and Gerhard (Garrett), 
and his daughter Elizabeth, he came to America and was 
settled in Germantown, Penn., in 1688, though he may 
have been in the country before that date. He was a Men- 
nonite, the first minister of that church in Germantown, 
and the first Mennonite bishop in America. 1 

In a modest way the mill was a success from the start. 
If it did not indeed "fill a long-felt want" it was at least 
promptly recognized as an interesting addition to the in- 
dustrial life of the colony. Several early writers on Penn- 



1 Daniel K. Cassell : A Genea-Bio graphical History of the Rit- 
tenhouse Family, pp. 47-66. 



BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

sylvania referred to it. Pennsylvania's first poet, who 
wrote a metrical description of the colony, thus sang of 
the mill : 

"The German-Town, of which I spoke before, 
Which is, at least, in length one Mile and More, 
Where lives High-German People, and Low-Dutch, 
Whose Trade in weaving Linnin Cloth is much, 
There grows the Flax, as also you may know. 
That from the same they do divide the Tow; 
Their Trade fits well within their Habitation, 
We find Conveniences for their Occupation, 
One Trade brings in imployment for another, 
So that we may suppose each trade a Brother ; 
From Linnin Rags good Paper doth derive, 
The First Trade keeps the second Trade alive : 
Without the first the second cannot be, 
Therefore since these two can so well agree, 
Convenience doth approve to place them nigh, 
One in the German-Town, 'tother hard by. 
A Paper Mill near German-Town doth stand, 
So that the Flax, which first springs from the Land, 
First Flax, then Yarn, and then they must begin, 
To weave the same, which they took pains to spin. 
Also when on our backs it is well worn, 
Some of the same remains Ragged and Torn ; 
Then of those Rags our paper it is made, 
Which in process of time doth waste and fade ; 
So what comes from the Earth, appeareth plain, 
The same in Time returns to Earth again." 2 

Another rhyming historian, writing about 1693, had 
these lines about Bradford and the paper-mill which had 
already become locally celebrated : 

"Here dwelt a Printer, and, I find, 
That he can both print books and bind ; 
He wants not paper, ink, nor skill, 
He's owner of a paper-mill : 
The paper-mill is here, hard by, 
And makes good paper frequently. 
But the printer, as I here tell, 
Is gone unto New York to dwell. 
No doubt but he will lay up bags 
If he can get good store of rags. 



2 Richard Frame : A Short Description of Pennsylvania. Printed 
and sold by William Bradford in Philadelphia, 1692. 



PAPER MA NUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Kind friends when thy old shift is rent 
Let it to th' paper mill be sent." 3 

A few years later an Englishman, writing in London 
concerning Pennsylvania, informed his readers that "all 
sorts of good Paper are made in the German-Town" 4 

As the practical man who alone was able to make the 
mill a success, William Rittenhouse ultimately became the 
sole owner. Turner disposed of his quarter interest in 
1697, Tresse in 1701 and Bradford in 1704. Bradford de- 
pended upon the mill even after the removal of his print- 
ing business to New York; in 1697 he rented his part of 
the property to the Rittenhouses upon these terms : 

"That they the sd. W m - and Clause Rittenhouse shall 
pay and deliver to sd. William Bradford, his Executors 
or assigns or their order in Philadelphia y e full quan- 
tity of Seven Ream of printing paper, Two Ream of 
good writing paper and two Ream of blue paper, 
yearly and every year during y e sd. Term of Ten 
years. . . . . . Also it is further Covenanted 

That during y e sd. Ten years y e sd. William and Clause 
Rittenhouse shall lett y e said W m - Bradford his Execu- 
tors or Assigns have y e refusal of all y e printing paper 
that they make and he shall take y e same at Ten shill- 
ings pr. Ream, As also y e sd. Bradford shall have y e 
refusal of five Ream of writing paper and Thirty Ream 
of brown paper yearly and every year during y e sd. 
Term of Ten years, y c writing paper to be at 20 s and y e 
brown paper at 6 s pr. Ream." 5 

From this it is evident that Bradford was to receive 
annually, for his share of the mill, paper valued at £6 2s, 
that is, £61 for the term of ten years. In addition he also 
had a monopoly of the total product of the mill, which was 
actually all the paper made in the colonies, from Septem- 
ber, 1697, to September, 1707. 

In 1701 a freshet overran the banks of the Wissahickon 



* John Holme : A True Relation of the Flourishing State of 
Pennsylvania. Printed in the Bulletin [Proceedings] of the Penn- 
sylvania Historical Society, I., No. 13, December, 1847, p. 172. 

4 Gabriel Thomas : An Historical and Geographical Account of 
the Proviyvce and County of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 
America. London, 1698. 

" Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XX., pp. 323-4. 



*J 



!-d 




PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and the paper-mill was swept away. The biographer of 
David Rittenhouse wrote regarding this that he had seen : 

"A paper in the handwriting of William Penn, and 
subscribed with his name, certifying that 'William Rit- 
tinghousen and Claus his son,' then 'part owners of the 
paper-mill near Germantown,' had recently sustained 
a very great loss by a violent and sudden flood, which 
carried away the said mill, with a considerable quantity 
of paper, materials and tools, with other things therein, 
whereby they were reduced to great distress ; and 
therefore, recommending to such persons as should be 
disposed to lend them aid, to give the sufferers, 'relief 
and encouragement, in their needful and commendable 
employment' as they were 'desirous to set up the paper- 
mill again.' " G 

In the following year a new mill was built a short dis- 
tance from the site of the old one. At that time there was 
correspondence between Rittenhouse and Bradford con- 
cerning the transfer of the interest which the latter still 
held in the property, and in one of the letters the value of 
the materials saved from the wreck — lumber, iron and 
press — was stated at £15, 2s, Ad. 

In 1706 William Rittenhouse deeded to his eldest son, 
Claus, a three-quarters interest in the mill and when he 
died intestate in 1708 the remaining quarter went to the 
same son. Claus Rittenhouse, who thus succeeded his 
father and became the second paper-mill proprietor in the 
colonies, was born in Holland in 1666, and died in German- 
town in 1734. He continued to make writing, printing, 
brown and blue papers and pasteboard, supplying Brad- 
ford in New York and the home market in Germantown 
and Philadelphia. Upon his death the mill became the 
property of his eldest son, William, whose brother 
Matthias carried on the manufacturing there until 1730. 
In subsequent generations the building was reconstructed 
in whole or in part several times, but continued to be used 
as a paper-mill. Finally, however, it was converted into 
a cotton-nrill. Later the site was incorporated in Phila- 
delphia's great Fairmount park. 



"William Barton: Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse, 
p. 83. 



BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 



In a later generation a third mill was built farther down 
on Paper Mill Run by the third William Rittenhouse. This 
building remained standing nearly to the close of the nine- 
teenth century. Other mills were erected in the vicinity, 
one on Paper Mill Run, and two on the Wissahickon 
creek, all operated by members of the Rittenhouse family. 
Neither the capacity of this mill nor the quantity of 
paper actually produced is known. All was handwork and 
each sheet was made separately. Several days were re- 
quired for the finishing of a sheet of dry perfected paper. 

"A day's work for three men was four and a half 
reams of newspaper 20 x 30. So that there might have 
been made annually at the Rittenhouse mill from 1,200 
to 1,500 reams of paper of all kinds but this is mere 
conjecture. Small as was its capacity, it was all im- 
portant to the community at large, for the home supply 
of Pennsylvania was dependent upon it." 7 

Most if not all the paper made in the Rittenhouse mill 
was water-marked. The first water-mark used was the 
single word "Company." The second was a double; on 
one-half the sheet was the monogram WR and on the other 
half a shield, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis crest and bear- 
ing on its face a clover leaf — which was the town seal of 
Germantown — and beneath this the word "Pensilvania" 

in black letters. Another mark 
was K R, the initials of Klaas 
(Claus) Rittenhouse, and later 
was I R for Jacob Rittenhouse, 
grandson of the founder. These 
marks are on correspondence 
sheets, books and newspapers 
of the first half of the eight- 
eenth century and later. Will- 
iam Bradford for his New 
York Gazette, established in 
November, 1725; and Andrew 
Bradford, his son, for his 




Early Water Mark of the 
Rittenhouse Paper. 



7 Horatio Gates Jones : Historical Sketch of the Rittenhouse 
Paper-Mill; in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biog- 
raphy, XX., p. 325. 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

American Weekly Mercury, of Philadelphia, established 
in December, 1719, the third newspaper in the American 
colonies, used Rittenhouse paper thus water-marked. 

The second paper-mill in the colonies was a direct out- 
growth of the Rittenhouse mill. It was built in 1710, by 
William De Wees, on the west side of the Wissahickon 
creek, in that part of Germantown then known as Crefield, 
not far from the Rittenhouse mill. William De Wees was 
a native of Holland, where he was born in 1677. He was 
brought to New York by his parents, Garrett Hendrick 
and Zytian De Wees, in 1688. His sister, Wilhelmina De 
Wees, in 1689, in the Reformed Church of New York, 
was married to Nicholas Rittenhuysen, who was then en- 
tered in the records as "a young man of Arnheim, living 
on the Delaware river." 8 This marriage was followed by 
the moving of the De Wees family to Germantown where 
William became an apprentice in. the paper-mill of his 
brother-in-law's father, probably remaining there until he 
started his own mill. In 1713 he sold his mill, with a hun- 
dred acres of land, to Abraham Tunis, William Streeper, 
Claus Ruttinghuysen and John Gorgas for £145. In 1729 
he entered into a business agre ment with Henry Antes, 
his son-in-law, the two to run a combination grist and 
paper-mill. This mill was also located in Germantown. 

An indenture of February 20, 1731, describes the land 
purchased by De Wees in Crefield, in March, 1729, and 
the two bolting mills and mill house "built and erected, 
found and provided, at the joint and equal cost and charge 
of William De Wees and Henry Antes." The digging and 
making of the dams of the mill race and the providing and 
putting in the gears of the paper-mill were at the charge 
of De Wees. For the money and labor expended by Antes 
and cash £25, a one-half interest in the mills and ground 
was conveyed to him. It was also provided that the paper- 
mill should be served only by the over-plus of water after 
the needs of the grist mills had been first met. 9 

William De Wees parted with his mill before he died 



* New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, X., p. 131. 
' Deed Book F, 5, p. 197, Philadelphia Recorder's Office. 

10 



BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

in 1745. His will, of November 22, 1744, did not mention 
it specifically although he bequeathed to his son Garrett 
his "dwelling house, grist-mill, land and plantation situate 
in Germantown with the buildings." But his son, Henry 
De Wees, succeeded him as a paper-maker. On a Phila- 
delphia map of 1746, "Hy De Wees' Paper-mill" is located 
at that place. During the revolution Henry De Wees made 
cartridge paper for the continental army. 

The first historian of American printing wrote that, as 
early as 1728, William De Wees and John Gorgas had a 
mill on the Wissahickon where "they manufactured an 
imitation of asses-skin paper for memorandum books, 
which was well executed." In support of this statement 
it was added that : 

"John Brighter, an aged paper-maker, who con- 
ducted a mill for more than half a century in Penn- 
sylvania, and who gave this account, observed that 
this kind of paper was made of rotten stone, which 
is found in several places near and to the northward 
of Philadelphia, and that the method of cleaning this 
paper was to throw it into the fire for a short time 
when it was taken out perfectly fair." 10 

This description would seem to indicate an asbestos 
paper. 

The same authority says that William De Wees, Jr., 
operated a paper-mill on the Wissahickon in 1736. 11 But 
there is no record of this in the history of the family, 
which, on the contrary, says that comparatively little is 
known about the younger William De Wees. 12 

Nearly forty years elapsed before the third Pennsylvania 
paper-mill came into existence. This was in the township 
of Concord, twenty miles from the city of Philadelphia, on 
the west branch of the Chester creek in that part of 
Chester county which afterward was Delaware county. 
Thomas Willcox, an Englishman, came to Concord in 
1725, or earlier perhaps. In 1726 he and Thomas Brown 
built a mill-dam on the west branch, leasing land for the 



10 Isaiah Thomas : The History of Printing in America, I., p. 53. 

11 Isaiah Thomas : The History of Printing in America, I., p. 24. 

12 Mrs. Philip E. La Munyan : The De Wees Family. 

11 



PAPE R MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

purpose on agreement to pay "yearly & for every year ye 
sum of one shilling of current lawful money of this prov- 
ince." On this land, in August, 1729, he built a paper- 
mill and entered into a partnership with Brown to make 
and sell paper. He had learned paper-making before com- 
ing to America and the arrangement was that he should 
receive three-fifths of the profits of the joint undertaking 
in consideration of instructing Brown who, evidently knew 
nothing about the business. 




The Willcox Ivy Mill, 1729. 

Reproduced from Ashmead's History of Delaware County, Penn. 

Little is known of the history of this mill during its 
first fifty years. The value placed upon the property is 
indicated by the fact that, in the beginning, Brown paid 
to Willcox £150 for his half interest, and that when he 
retired from active participation in the business, in 1732, 
he leased to Willcox his half interest in the land, mill and 
equipment, for a term of seven years, at a yearly rental of 
£13. Subsequently he reconveyed his interest to Willcox 
who thus became the sole owner. This and other adja- 

12 



BUILDING THE FIRST MILLS 

cent property has remained in possession of descendants 
of Thomas Willcox to the present day. 13 

When Thomas Willcox died, in 1772, he was succeeded 
by his son, Mark, who had, in fact, been the poetical 
operator of the mill for some years previous. Mark Will- 
cox retained ownership until his death, but, after 1808, he 
had his sons associated with him, the last surviving one in- 
heriting the property and continuing the business" until 
1854. Attention has been called to the remarkable fact 
that at the time of the death of Mark Willcox, in 1827: 

"Two men. of two generations, father and son, had 
conducted the mill ninety-eight years. The ponder- 
ous machinery, however, of modern mills, silenced it 
long ago, but it still stands [1884] a silent relic of its 
early time. Its wheel has long since decayed; its 
stone gable is thickly covered with the venerable ivy- 
vine whose root came over the ocean, in 1718, from 
near the old Ivy Bridge in Devonshire." 14 

The first output of the Willcox mill is said to have been 
fullers' press board. Later, printing paper was made, 
some of it for Benjamin Franklin, who became a close 
friend of Willcox and much interested in his undertaking. 

After 1775 the mill was devoted 
almost entirely to making gov- 
ernment paper for the conti- 
nental bills, loan certificates 
and bills of exchange. Ulti- 
mately, its product was prin- 
cipally banknote paper for the 

Water Mark of the Will- Un j ted States and various in- 

cox Ivy Mills Paper. dividual states, banks, foreign 

Reproduced from Joseph Will- countries and nrivate individ- 
cox's ivy Mills, 1729-1866. countries ana privare maivia 

uals. At the time of the 
revolution and before, the government authorities de- 
pended entirely upon this mill for paper for currency pur- 
poses and placed implicit confidence in it. 




"Joseph Willcox: The Ivy Mills, 1729-1866. 
w Henry Graham Ashmead : History of Delaware County, Penn- 
sylvania, p. 494. 

13 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"When the old Colonies, much more than a century 
ago, found themselves obliged to issue paper money, 
the currency paper used by all of them was manufac- 
tured by Thomas Willcox, at Ivy Mills, and mostly 
printed in Philadelphia. No other currency paper 
was used upon the continent than that made at the 
old Ivy Mills. Many years later, in the necessities of 
the newly confederated states, the paper for all the 
continental currency was supplied from the same es- 
tablishment. There was no other possessing experi- 
ence in the manufacture, and during the revolution- 
ary war, paper could not be imported. Again, in the 
war of 1812, the government was obliged to issue 
paper money, and again recourse was had to the old 
Ivy Mill to supply its necessities." 15 



1 John Hill Martin : History of Chester and Its Vicinity, p. 233. 



14 



CHAPTER TWO 

OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

A Second Venture is Made by Bradford the Printer — 
First Mills are Established in Massachusetts, 
Maine, Connecticut, New York and Elsewhere — 
The Mills of the Ephrata German Community 
in Pennsylvania — Saur, Famous Printer of the 
First German Bible, Also Builds a Mill 

AS has already been shown in the preceding chapter 
three small mills alone represented the infant in- 
dustry of paper-making until well into the second quart- 
er of the eighteenth century. A growing need for paper 
existed, such as even importation was not able adequately 
to supply ; but conditions were unfavorable to expansion of 
the business. Skilled workmen were scarce and rags were 
more scarce ; it was difficult to procure even the simple 
tools needed, such as vats, presses and moulds, and they 
were expensive ; the domestic market for paper was irreg- 
ular, and altogether the cost of production was relatively 
so high that a better quality of imported paper could be 
sold for no more than that of domestic make. The in- 
dustry, such "as it was, continued to be merely local, re- 
sponsive to and meeting local demands almost entirely, 
principally those of printers like the Bradfords and others. 
William Bradford could never divest himself of the 
desire to own and operate a paper-mill as an adjunct to his 
press. He was one of the most energetic men of his time 
in Philadelphia and New York, shrewd, calculating, re- 
sourceful and dominating. Had he been of 1900 instead 
of 1700 he would have shone pre-eminently as one of our 

15 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

modern hustlers. Within three months after his arrival 
in Philadelphia he had set up his press and printed an 
almanac, a big achievement for that time and under the 
conditions then prevailing. Instrumental in having the 
first American paper-mill built, partly to supply the needs 
of his printing establishment in Philadelphia, and in secur- 
ing to himself a monopoly of the output of that mill, even 
after he had removed to New York city, his hunger for 
paper was only measurably appeased. Aside from the 
general need for writing paper, the press of his son, 
Andrew Bradford — who began printing in Philadelphia 
in 1710 and there started The American Weekly Mercury 
— added to the demand upon the limited domestic supply ; 
both father and son continued to use all the paper that 
they could draw from Rittenhouse and De Wees but that 
was far from sufficient. 

So it came about that, in 1724, he conceived the idea of 
securing a concession from the New York authorities, for 
starting a mill in that colony. On July 6 of that year he 
petitioned the general assembly "to admit him to bring in 
a bill to entitle him to the sole making of paper in the 
province." The bill was introduced and finally passed on 
July 14, when the assembly "ordered that Mr. Jansen do 
carry the Bill to the Council and desire their concurrence 
thereto." 16 In the council the proposed measure received 
short shrift, for the governor was not inclined to encour- 
age any new colonial manufacturing if he could avoid it. 
The records state that, on July 16, this message was re- 
ceived by the council: 

"from the Assembly by Mr. Jansen dated the 14th 
Instant with the Bill entituled, An Act to. Encourage 
William . Bradford and his Assignes to make Paper 
and to prohibit all other persons from making the 
same in this Province during the space of fifteen years 
and Desiring the Concurrence of this Board thereto." 

The bill was read the first time and ordered to a second 
reading. At the next meeting of the council, July 18, the 
bill was read the second time, referred to a committee, re- 



14 Journal of the Votes and Proceedings of ihe General Assembly 
of the Colony of New York, L, pp. 508-510. 

16 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

ported back and then, "The question being put, Whether 
the said bill be read the Third time ? It was carryed in the 
negative." 17 Such seems to have been the end of the first 
attempt to start a paper-mill in that colony. 

However, a few years after, Bradford succeeded in hav- 
ing a mill, this time in Elizabethtown, N. J. By whom and 
when the mill was built and by whom first managed is not 
known. 18 It is said that Bradford bought it in 1728 in 
order to supply his newspaper, The New York Gazette, 
started in 1725, and that of his son, Andrew Bradford, in 
Philadelphia, the mill being very conveniently located be- 
tween the two cities. How long he owned this mill can- 
not be said. That it was held by him in 1729 and was in 
existence as late as 1735 is shown by two newspaper ad- 
vertisements of those dates : 

"An Indented Servant Man, named James Roberts, 
is Run away from William Bradford's Paper-Mill at 
Elizabeth Town in New Jersey. . . . He is a 
West-Country-man, has been about one year in the 
Country, and is a Paper-maker by Trade." 19 

"On Wednesday, the 23 of April next, at the Paper- 
Mill in Elizabeth-Town, there will be sold at Publick 
Vendue to the highest Bidder, all sorts of Household 
Goods, Cattle, Horses, Hogs, Cart, Plows, Harrows 
with Iron Teeth, and other Utinsels : The Plantation 
adjoining to the said Mill will also be sold. . . ," 20 

Between 1639 — when the first press was set up in Cam- 
bridge, Mass. — and 1728, there were thirty-five or pos- 
sibly thirty-seven printers in the colonies, twenty-three of 
whom were in Boston, nine in Philadelphia and two in 
New York. The output in those years was three thousand 
and sixty-seven books, pamphlets and broadsides. 21 There 
were also six newspapers, all published weekly : The Boston 
Nezus-Letter, The Boston Gazette, The American Weekly 
Mercury of Philadelphia, The Nezv-En gland Courant of 

"Journal of the Legislative Council of the Colony of New York 
pp. 512-514. 

18 Edwin F. H£tneld: History of Elisabeth, N. J., p. 324. 

19 The American Weekly Mercury, Philadelphia, July 3 and 10, 
1729. 

20 The New York Gazette, April 7, 1735. 

21 Charles Evans : American Bibliography. 

17 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Boston, The New York Gazette, and The New-England 
Weekly Journal of Boston. These had been in existence 
from one to twenty-four years, the oldest, The Boston 
News-Letter, having been established in 1704. The num- 
ber of weekly issues of these newspapers prior to 1728 
was about three thousand, making, with the books, pamph- 
lets and broadsides, nearly eight thousand as the total num- 
ber of imprints. The editions were not large in any in- 
stance, never, at the most, exceeding a few thousand 
copies, or of the pamphlets, probably only a few hundred. 

Considering now the first quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the printers of Boston outnumbered those of the rest 
of the country two to one ; four of the six American news- 
papers were published in Boston ; two-thirds of the books 
and pamphlets of the period bore a Boston imprint. East- 
ern Massachusetts was easily the literary and typographic 
center. Yet, despite these facts, there was no paper-mill 
in this locality until after 1728. Why Philadelphia should 
have established this industry so far in advance of Boston, 
which would seem to have been earlier in need of it, is not 
clear. Perhaps the individual activity of William Brad- 
ford may have had much to do with that. Also the com- 
mercial connection of Boston with England was so inti- 
mate and well developed that importation was not inade- 
quate to the domestic needs. Whatsoever may have been 
the reason, however, there were three mills in Pennsylvania 
and one in New Jersey before the first in New England. 

Starting a paper-mill in those days was a serious affair. 
Even though the contemplated mill might be ever so in- 
significantly small and unimportant an ambitious man 
could not go out and invest his capital in site, water-power 
and building and proceed to work unrestrainedly. Paper- 
making was regarded as a sort of public utility — as indeed 
were other manufacturing industries — and it came under 
the watchful supervision of the public service commissions 
or trade commissions of that time, that is the great and 
general court, or the assembly, or the governor and coun- 
cil, as the authority might be in different colonies. Per- 
mission to engage in the business was a prerogative of the 
government and a monopoly, for an indicated term of 

18 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

years, was asked for and generally included, if the per- 
mission was accorded at all. The grant was a ponderous, 
impressive document, elaborate with specifications and re- 
quirements. Such was the charter granted, upon petition, 
to several substantial citizens of Boston, in 1728, by the 
great and general court of the province of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay. The measure, passed on September 13 of 
that year, reads as follows in the legislative records : 

An Act for the Encouragement of Making Paper. 

tiTT7"HEREAS the Making Paper zvithin this 
VV Province will be of Public Benefit and 
Service; But inasmuch as the Erecting Mills for that 
purpose and providing Workmen and Materials for 
the Effecting that Undertaking will necessarily de- 
mand a considerable Disburse of Money for some 
time before any profit, or gain can arise there-from; 
And whereas Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phillips, Ben- 
jamin Faneuil and Thomas Hancock, together with 
Henry Dering, are willing & desirous to Undertake 
the Manufacturing Paper; Wherefore, for the Pro- 
moting so beneficial a Design ; 

"Be it Enacted by His Excellency the Governour, 
Council and Representatives in General Court Assem- 
bled, and by the Authority of the same, That the sole 
Privilege and Benefit of making Paper within this 
Province shall be to the said Daniel Henchman, 
Gillam Phillips, Benjamin Faneuil, Thomas Hancock 
and Henry Dering, and to their Associates, for and 
during the Term of Ten Years from and after the 
Tenth Day of December next ensuing: provided the 
aforesaid Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phillips, Benja- 
min Faneuil, Thomas Hancock and Henry Dering, 
shall make or cause to be made within this Province, 
in the space of Twelve Months next after the Tenth 
Day of December, next, Two hundred Rheam of 
good Merchantable Brown Paper, and Printing 
Paper, Sixty Rheam thereof at least to be Printing 
Paper, and within the space of Twelve Months then 
next coming, shall cause to be made within this Prov- 
ince Fifty Rheam of good Merchantable Writing 
Paper, of equal goodness with the Paper commonly 
stampt with the London arms, over and above the 
aforesaid Two hundred Rheam of Brown Paper, and 
Printing Paper. 

"AND further, That the aforesaid Daniel Hench- 

19 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 



man, Gillam Phillips, Benjamin Faneuil, and Thomas 
Hancock, together with Henry Bering, proceed and 
make Twenty-five Rheam of finer & better Writing 
Paper in this Province, as aforesaid, at or before the 
Tenth Day of December, which will be in the Year of 
Our Lord One thousand seven hundred & thirty-one 
and continue to make the Quantities and Species of 
paper before Enumerated in the aforesaid Two Years, 
and that they make or cause to be made within the 
space of Twelve Months, from and after the said 
Tenth of December 1731. Five hundred Rheam of 
good Merchantable Writing and Printing Paper, One 




One nf the Proprietors of the First Massachusetts Paper-Mill. 

Reproduced from Oliver A. Roberts' History of the Military Co. of 
the Massachusetts. 

20 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

hundred and fifty Rheam thereof at least to be Writ- 
ing Paper, and continue to make the like Quantity of 
Five hundred Rheam, as aforesaid, every Year, for 
and during the remaining part of the said Ten Years ; 
and if any person or persons shall make any Paper 
within this Province, without leave first had and ob- 
tained from the said Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phil- 
lips, Benjamin Faneuil, Thomas Hancock and Henry 
Dering, he or they so making the same shall pay 
Twenty Shillings for every Rheam of Paper Manu- 
factured in this Province, as aforesaid ; One half of 
the said Twenty Shillings to be to and for the Under- 
takers Daniel Henchman, Gillam Phillips, Benjamin 
Faneuil, Thomas Hancock and Henry Dering, and 
their Associates; the other half to the use of the Poor 
of the Town where the Paper shall be exposed to 
Sale, or brought and found, to be recovered by the 
said Undertakers, by Bill, Plaint or Information in 
any of His Majesties Courts of Record within the 
County, where the offence shall be committed, or be- 
fore any Justice of the Peace in the same County, 
where the forfeiture shall not exceed Forty Shil- 
lings." 22 

This company of paper-makers, who thus initiated the 
business in the Massachusetts colony, was a sort of 
family affair. Daniel Henchman, the senior promoter, was 
a rich man, a book-binder, publisher and bookseller of 
Boston, and Thomas Hancock was his son-in-law. 
Hancock was also a bookseller and a stationer, becom- 
ing one of Boston's wealthiest merchants; and he was 
the uncle of the more famous John Hancock of the revo- 
lution period. Benjamin Faneuil was the father of 
the celebrated Peter Faneuil. Gillam Phillips was a son- 
in-law of the elder Faneuil. Henry Dering was the 
superintendent and agent. 

More than twenty years before, a mill with raceway had 
been built on the Milton side of the Neponset river, seven 
or eight miles from Boston. This was now leased by 
Henchman and his associates who also erected a house for 
their workmen, the upper story of which was left as an 



22 Chapter XV of the Acts and Laws passed by the Great and 
General Court in 1728. Acts and Resolves of the Province of the 
Massachusetts Bay, II., p. 518. 

21 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

open loft for drying the paper by exposure to the air. The 
business was slow in being fully started. From the be- 
ginning difficulty was experienced in securing capable 
workmen and work was carried on only in a small and 
rather desultory way for several years. In 1731 Hench- 
man exhibited to the great and general court in Boston a 
sample sheet of paper made there, but the mill was prob- 
ably productive before that date. Soon it became such a 
local institution that it was alluded to in the letters and the 
newspapers of the time. One Boston newspaper in 1733 
made incidental reference to it in a rhymed advertisement. 




Thomas Hancock. 

Part Proprietor of the First Paper-Mill in Massachusetts. 

From an engraving after the Copley portrait in Memorial Hall, 

Harvard University. 

22 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

"In Milton, near the Paper Mill, 
A new built house to rent: 
Ask of the Printer and you will 
Know further to content." 

Henchman first employed Henry Woodman, an English- 
man, as foreman. After a few years of unsuccess, Dering 
and Woodman retired. Jeremiah Smith was then engaged 
to take charge and finally he became the sole owner, pur- 
chasing the leased mill and adjoining land in 1741. To 
assist him he procured Abijah Smith, an American paper- 
maker, and as foreman John Hazleton, an Englishman. 
Hazleton was a soldier in one of the British regiments 
stationed in Boston, and a furlough was granted him to 
work in the mill, so much was the need of encouraging the 
manufacture of paper. Shortly, however, when his regi- 
ment was ordered to service in Canada, he rejoined the 
colors, and was among those who met death on the plains 
of Abraham. Smith continued in the mill until he was an 
old man, and associated with him in his later years was 
his son-in-law, James Boies, and Richard Clarke, an ex- 
perienced paper-maker from New York, who was said to 
have a superior knowledge of the business and was able to 
make his own moulds. 23 

In December, 1763, James Boies — or Boyce, as the name 
was often spelled — and Richard Clarke petitioned the 
great and general court of Massachusetts, reciting their 
work in making paper, and employing people "in picking 
up Raggs and Ropes of which the Paper is made" and ask- 
ing "a Bounty for their encouragement of this Mystery." 
Upon this petition the legislative body took action as fol- 
lows: 

"And as the Paper Mills upon the milton Stream 
have been very advantageous to the Province but are 
now in a ruinous Condition ; therefore in order to 
their being repaired 

"Resolved That the Treasurer be directed to pay 
into the hands of the Petitioners the Sum of Four 



™E. B. Crane: Early Paper Mills in Massachusetts: in Collec- 
tions of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, VII., p. 115. William 
Goold :_ Early Papcrmills of New England; in The Neiv England 
Historic-Genealogical Register, XXIX., p. 158. 

23 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

hundred pounds, taking their Obligation without In- 
terest with Sufficient Security for the repayment 
thereof." 24 

A second mill was built by Boies and he was joined by 
Clarke, the two being in partnership in this enterprise for 
several years. The second mill was burned in 1768, but 
was promptly rebuilt. A third mill was owned in 1771 by 
Boies and Hugh McLean, his son-in-law. In 1773, George 
Clarke, son of Richard Clarke, added a fourth mill to this 
group which had thus expanded in fifty years. The Boies 
& McLean mill was burned in 1782. 

Others identified with the mill before the end of the cen- 
tury were Daniel Vose, who married a daughter of Jere- 
miah Smith, and Jeremiah Smith Boies, son of James 
Boies. In 1795 Jeremiah Smith Boies erected another 
building for the purpose of making paper, chocolate and 
starch. He employed, as foreman, Mark Hollingsworth 
from New Jersey, and that introduced into this locality 
the family of great paper-manufacturers of that name. 25 

These early paper-manufacturers were men of more 
than ordinary note in their day. Jeremiah Smith was a 
native of Ireland, coming to Boston in 1726. He was an 
intimate friend of Governor Thomas Hutchinson and 
socially prominent. James Boies, who was also an Irish- 
man, born in 1702, lived in Milton until his death in 1796, 
at the advanced age of ninety-six. He served with 
General Wolfe in the battle on the plains of Abra- 
ham before Quebec, in 1759, and during the revolu- 
tion was a trusted adviser of the patriots in Dorchester, 
Mass. He took an active part in constructing, during the 
night of March 4, 1775, the fortifications on Dorchester 
Heights which compelled the evacuation of Boston by the 
British troops. Hugh McLean, born in Ireland in 1724, 
died in Milton at the age of seventy-five. 2 " 

Soon after 1730, Samuel Waldo and Thomas West- 



24 Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 
XVII, p. 443. 

25 Albert K. Teele : The History of Milton, Mass., p. 371. 

25 Journal of The American-Irish Historical Society, VI, p. 79 
and VII, p. 86. 

24 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

brook planned to build a mill in Falmouth, Me., and Rich- 
ard Fry, a paper-maker from England, was associated with 
them in the enterprise, possibly being the original pro- 
moter. Information regarding the affair is derived chiefly 
from papers in the court files of Suffolk county, Mass. 
In 1739 Fry was confined in jail in Boston, on account of 
a debtor judgment of £70 sterling obtained against him 
by Waldo and Westbrook in the superior court sitting in 




Samuel Waldo. 

Principal Proprietor of the First Paper-Mil] in Maine. 

Reproduced from an engraving after the oil painting in Bowdoin 

College. 

25 



PAPER MANUF ACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

York, Me. From the jail, on June 22, he petitioned Gov- 
ernor Jonathan Belcher and the council and house of rep- 
resentatives of the province of the Massachusetts Bay for 
relief, averring that : 

"Your petitioner indented with Mr. Samuel Waldo 
in the year 1731 in London, to have built, within ten 
months after my arrival in New England, a paper 
mill. Your petioner arrived in New England in the 
year 1731 and waited four years wholy at his own ex- 
pense, till such time as the said mills were built. Your 
petioner willing to promote the good of his country, 
drew a plan for sundry sorts of mills to be built, which 
was across Presumscot river in Falmouth ; which 
scheme the said Waldo and Westbrook came into and 
built the said mills. And your petitioner sent for one 
Mr. John Collier from England, which took the lease 
of the said mills at two hundred pounds sterling per 
annum for twenty one years. Your petitioner was to 
pay sixty-four pounds sterling per ann. for twenty- 
one years for the papermills." 

Fry sought leave to bring a writ of review of his case 
to be tried in Suffolk county, and also to have a grant 
of land to recompense him for his expenses in leaving 
England and for his work in the province. The council 
was not at all impressed by his claim and his petition was 
dismissed. Although the petition says that the mills were 
"across the Presumscot river" other papers in the Suffolk 
county court files show that it was built on the banks of the 
Stroudwater river, a small stream near the Westbrook 
residence, Harrow House, in the outskirts of Falmouth, 
afterwards Portland, Me. A note about it is in the diary 
of the Reverend Thomas Smith, minister in Falmouth, 
under date of September 5, 1733. "We all rode in the 
Colonel's new road to see where the paper-mill is to be 
set." 27 

Beyond the statement in the Fry petition, contradicted 
by court papers, as has been pointed out, no trace has been 
found of a mill on the Presumpscot. That on the Stroud- 
water was operated for some years. Workmen from Eng- 



27 William Willis : Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the 
Rev. Samuel Deane, p. 79. 

26 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

land were employed and it is said that, at one time, they 
destroyed the machinery, being dissatisfied with the low 
wages paid them. Waldo and Westbrook could manu- 
facture only by arrangement with Daniel Henchman and 
his associates of Boston whose charter gave them exclusive 
rights in Massachusetts Bay, of which province the Maine 
territory was then part ; and their only market was Bos- 
ton. The mill was finally burned but remains of the dam 
and foundations of the building existed as late as 1875. 28 
According to the papers in the suit against him, Fry had 
an active part in the operation of the mill. Waldo and 
Westbrook leased the mill to him, in 1734, for a term of 
twenty-one years at an annual rental of £40 sterling, pay- 
able quarterly, and they also agreed to build and lease a 
house for him to live in and "to lease to him the saw-mill 
that stood by the same dam if that should interfere with 
water needed for the paper-mill. Fry occupied the prop- 
erty until December 25, 1736, but failed to pay his rent. 
He delivered to his landlords fifty reams of paper valued 
at £10. That was credited to him on the account for un- 
paid rent and it was for the balance that suit was brought 
and judgment obtained which held him in jail for several 
years. 29 After leaving Maine Fry was in business in Bos- 
ton as this advertisement shows : 

"This is to give notice, That Richard Fry, Sta- 
tioner, Bookseller, Paper-Maker & Rag Merchant 
from the City of London, keeps at Mr. Tho. Fleet/, 
Printer, at the Heart & Crown in Cornhill, Boston ; 
where said Fry is ready to accommodate all Gentle- 
men, Merchants and Tradesmen, I return 
the Publick Thanks for following the Direction of my 
former Advertisement for gathering Rags, and hope 
they will still continue the like method, having re- 
ceived upwards of Seven Thousand Weight al- 
ready"™ 



28 William Goold : Early Papermills in New England; in The 
New England Historic-Genealogical Register, XXIX., pp. 159-163. 

29 Andrew McFarland Davis: Introduction to Richard Fry's A 
Scheme for a Paper Currency; in Club for Colonial Reprints, 
Providence, R. I. 

80 The Weekly Rehearsal, May 1, 1732. The New England 
Weekly Journal, April 24, 1732. 

27 



PAPER MANUF ACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Again in 1734 Fry specially advertised his connection 
with this mill, mentioning- his interest in it three years 
before, that is in 1731. 

"It is now almost Three Years, since I Published 
an Advertisement, to shew you the excellent Economy 
of the Dutch, in the Paper Manufactory, in order to 
induce you to follow so laudable an Example; but I 
am sorry to say, I have had but small Effects of as 
yet : When Gentlemen have been at great Expense 
to serve the Public, as well as their own private In- 
terest, it is the Duty of every Person, as much as in 
them lies, to help forward so useful a Manufactory; 
Therefore I intreat all those that are Lovers of their 
Country, to be very careful of their Linncn Rags, and 
send them to Joseph Stocker in Spring Lane, Boston, 
and they shall receive ready Money for the same." 31 

It has been suggested that Fry may have been also in- 
terested in the paper-mill in Milton, Mass., but no evi- 
dence of such connection exists. More likely, as a shrewd 
wide-awake business man — for such he appears to have 
been — he was doing his best to get a corner on the few 
rags in the community, so as to sell again to the needy 
mills in Maine and Massachusetts. Fry was a picturesque 
figure in the business life of Boston. He was a litigious 
individual, and the court records of Suffolk county are 
laden with cases in which he was plaintiff or defendant. 
While in jail he evolved a scheme for a paper currency 
that he submitted to the provincial government only to 
have it declined, but ultimately to become a treasured rare 
Americana of later generations. He died in 1745. His 
widow, Martha Fry, of Boston, took out papers of ad- 
ministration on his estate, describing herself as a "paper- 
maker," which would indicate that he may have main- 
tained some connection with the business until his death. 

Samuel Waldo was a Boston man of wealth, prominence 
and influence, much of his wealth being in real estate. He 
removed to Falmouth and in the western part of Maine 
acquired possession of the great "Waldo patent," a tract of 
land of fully five-hundred thousand acres. Easily he was 
the foremost man of his time in that section. According to 

81 The Boston Ncws-Lcttcr, October 17, and November 8, 1734. 

28 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

one of his biographers he was ambitious, avaricious and 
unscrupulous, and if the judgment of some of his con- 
temporaries was correct, he did not permit friendship or 
other considerations to interfere over-much with any 
measures that he planned for advancement or acquisition. 
In the Louisburg expedition, in 1745, he was a brigadier- 
general, second in command of the Masaschusetts troops. 

Thomas Westbrook was a farmer and an owner of real 
estate. He was associated with Waldo in land speculation 
in which he was ruined, and he died broken-hearted, by 
reason of, it is said, the perfidy of his business associate. 

The fourth Pennsylvania mill, which followed the Rit- 
tenhouse by forty-six years and the Willcox by seven or 
more years, was, like others of its predecessors and con- 
temporaries, principally a printer's mill. This was Die 
Papier-Muhle der Bruderschaft zu Ephrata, built at 
Ephrata, Lancaster county, on the banks of the Cocalico 
creek. Ephrata was a communistic and ascetic settlement 
of a branch of the Pietists of Germany who came to Penn- 
sylvania early in the eighteenth century. The members 
of the community lived in a kloster or convent under 
monastic rules of celibacy and austerity. They set up 
several establishments such as grist mills and saw mills and 
soon the community became a great industrial center. A 
grist mill was built about 1736 and a paper-mill soon after. 
At first the Eckerling brothers were in charge of the mill, 
but after they had been expelled from the community be- 
cause it was feared that they were becoming too material- 
istic and practical, the work was directed by Samuel Funk 
and Jacob Funk, both experienced paper-makers. 

The principal product of the mill was a coarse printing- 
paper and what was known as "macalatur," though some 
finer kinds of writing and printing were made. Ordinary 
grades of printing were made upon plain sieves without 
water-mark, but other grades were water-marked. The 
wire sieves were a domestic product from Isaac Langlc, 
of Germantown, who died in 1743. It was claimed, at one 
time, that this mill was turning out more paper than any 
other similar establishment in the colonies. References 
in the Chronicon Ephretense show that the mill was work- 

29 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

ing as late as 1784. In the diary of Brother Kenon — Jacob 
Funk — is an entry that on September 1, 1784, "between 
2 and 3 o'clock in the morning the new building was set 
on fire but luckily the fire was extinguished." 

Ephrata paper was variously water-marked. An early 
mark was a large design rudely made, "adopted by the 





Water-Mark of the Paper 
of the Ephrata Mills of 
the Zionitic Brother- 
hood, made about 1740. 



Water-Mark of the Eph- 
rata Mills' Paper Used 
in the Saur German 
Bible, 1743. 



Zionitic brotherhood and intended for the distinctly 
mystical publications" of Ephrata. Its conspicuous feature 
was a Latin cross surmounted by a scroll on which was 
graven the word "Zion." Extending from the top of the 
upright to the ends of the arm of the cross were two keys, 
these referring to The Keys of Solomon, a mystical book 
of the seventeenth century held in high esteem by the 
brotherhood. The foot of the cross rested upon a panel 
upon which was the word "Efrata" and the whole design 
was surrounded, as in a frame, by an ornamental scroll. 
This mark is seen on the paper of a book printed at 
Ephrata before 1745. After the Eckerling period other 
marks were used particularly indicating the management 
of the mill by the Funk brothers. One of these, on the fly 
leaf of a Saur Bible, was the figure 4 — the mystical perfect 
number — and the initials R F — the private mark of the 
Funk family. Another mark on the paper of some of the 
publications of the society was F B, standing for Brother 

30 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

Funk. Then there was a post horn in heart shape with 
E F, standing for Efrata, in the center; the letters E F 
on fine writing paper ; and sometimes the full name Efrata 
in letters nearly an inch tall. 3 - 

Other early Philadelphia paper-makers, though more 
celebrated as printers, were Christopher Saur — Sower in 
English — and Christopher, his son. Saur was a German, 
a university graduate, educated in medicine and with busi- 
ness experience. He came to America in 1724 and settled 
in Germantown, where he was a farmer and established 
various branches of manufacturing. He set up a print- 
ing press in 1738 and was one of leading printers in the 
colonies. His paper-mill, built in 1744, or before, was 
located on a branch of the Frankford river, near the falls 
of the Schuylkill, not far from what is now Manayunk. 
The needs of his printing impelled him to try the paper- 
making business. He printed many books, the most 
famous of which was the German Bible known by his 
name, the second Bible printed in America, as is shown by 
the imprint "Germantown Printed by Christoph Saur 
1 743 "33 s ome f ti le p a p er f or this Bible, perhaps indeed 
all, came from the mill in Ephrata, but it is possible that 
the Saur mill may have supplied a portion of the stock. 
In the prospectus for this Bible, sent out in 1739, Saur 
apologized for the seeming high price asked for it — four- 
teen shillings — saying that the paper he should use cost at 
least four times as much as like paper cost in Germany. 

Upon his death in 1758, Saur bequeathed the mill and its 
appurtenances and other property to his son Christopher, 
who became one of the foremost Pennsylvania men of his 
day in wealth and in business activity and success. He 
had a large printing business and "employed two or more 
mills in manufacturing paper." 34 But during the revolu- 
tion trouble befell him and when he died, in 1784, he was 
a poor and broken man. On religious principle a non- 
resistant, as his father had been before him, he would not 



M J. F. Sackse : The Ephrata Paper Mill. In Papers of Lancaster 
County [Perm.] Historical Society, I., p. 323-345. 
M Isaiah Thomas : The History of Printing in America, I., p. 24. 
84 Henry Simpson : Lives of Eminent Philadelphians (1859), p. 906. 

31 




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OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

participate in the colonial uprising against the British rule, 
while one of his sons was suspected of being in full sym- 
pathy with the British authorities in Philadelphia. Ac- 
cused of toryism he was placed under arrest in 1778, and, 
in August of that year, all his property was confiscated 
and sold, the sale amounting to £17,640. 35 

A Philadelphia historian gives an account of the con- 
fiscation and sale of forfeited estates of accused tories in 
December, 1779, by the government confiscation agent and 
quotes this entry among the records of such sales : "Chris- 
topher Saur, house, paper-mill, saw-mill, mill-dam, etc., 
Wissahickon road, Roxborough, sold to Jacob Morgan, 
Jr., for £5,150." 36 

It appears that Virginia had a paper-mill in 1744, the 
first in that colony. William Parks built it in Williams- 
burg to feed his printing presses. Parks was the first edi- 
tor and newspaper publisher in Virginia. He came from 
England and established The Maryland Gazette at Annap- 
olis in 1727, continuing there for eight years. Then, by 
invitation of the college authorities in Williamsburg, Va., 
he removed to that place, opened a book-store, set up a 
printing-press and established, in 1736, The Virginia Ga- 
zette. Concerning this mill the Virginia historian, Lyon 
Gardiner Tyler, has written in his Williamsburg, the Old 
Colonial Capital: 

"In 1744 William Parks erected a paper-mill on a 
branch of Archer's Hope Creek behind the present 
hospital for the insane, and some verses were printed 
in The Virginia Gazette to celebrate the enterprise of 
the editor." 

The versified tribute from a friendly contributor, to 
which Tyler referred, was printed in the issue of the 
Gazette for July 26, 1744, and in it, the writer joined praise 
of paper with the plea for rags, customary to the period. 
As reprinted in the Virginia Magazine of History and Bi- 
ography, April, 1900, it was as follows : 



35 Charles G. Sower : Genealogical Chart of the Descendants of 
Christopher Sower. 

36 J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott : History of Phila- 
delphia, I., p. 397. 

33 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

THE PAPER MILL. Inscrib'd to Mr. Parks. 
In nova, fert Ammis, mutates dicere formas, Corpora. 
Ovid, 
Tho' sage Philosophers have said, 

Of nothing, can be nothing made; 
Yet much thy Mill, O Parks brings forth 
From what we reckon nothing worth. 
Hail kind Machine! — The Muse shall praise 
Thy Labours, that receive her Lays. 
Soon as the Learn'd denounce the War 
From pratling Box, or wrangling Bar, 
Straight, Pen and Paper range the Fight; 
They meet, they close, in Black & White 
The Substances of what we think, 
Tho' born in Thought, must live in Ink. 
Whilst willing Mem'ry lends her Aid, 
She finds herself by Time betrayed. 
Nor can thy Name, Dear Molly, live 
Without those Helps the Mill must give ; 
The Sheet now hastens to declare, 
How lovely thou, and — my Despair. 

Unwitting Youths, whose Eyes or Breast, 
Involve in Sighs, and spoil of Rest; 
Unskill'd to say their piteous Case, 
But miss the Girl for want of Brass, 
May paint their Anguish on the Sheet ; 
For Paper cannot blush, I weet. 
And Phillis (for Bissextile Year 
Does only once in Four appear, 
When Maids, in dread to lie alone 
Have Leave to bid the men come on), 
Each Day may write to lure the Youth 
She longs to wed, or fool, or — both. 

Ye Brave, whose Deeds shall vie with Time, 
Whilst Mill can turn, or Poet rhime 
Your Tatters hoard for future Quires ; 
So Need demands, so Parks desires. 
(And long that gen'rous Patriot live 
Who for soft Rags, hard Cash will give!) 
The Shirt, Cravat, the Cap, again 
Shall meet your Hands, with Mails from Spain; 
The Surplice, which, when whole or new, 
With Pride the Sexton's Wife could view, 
Tho' worn by Time and gone to rack, 
It quits its Rev'rend Master's Back ; 
The same again the Priest may see 
Bound up in Sacred Liturgy. 

34 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

Ye Fair, renown'd in Cupid's Field, 
Who fain would tell what Hearts you've killed ; 
Each Shift decay'd, lay by with care ; 
Or Apron rubb'd to bits at — Pray'r, 
One Shift ten Sonnets may contain, 
To gild your Charms, and make you vain ; 
One Cap, a Billet-doux may shape, 
As full of Whim, as when a Cap, 
And modest 'Kerchiefs Sacred held 
May sing the Breasts they once conceal 'd. 

Nice Delia's Smock, which, neat and whole, 
No Man durst finger for his Soul ; 
Turn'd to Gazette, now all the Town, 
May take it up, or smooth it down. 
Whilst Delia may with it dispence, 
And no Affront to Innocence. 

The Bards, besure, their Aids will lend ; 
The Printer is the Poet's Friend ; 
Both cram the News and stuff the Mills, 
For Bards have Rags, and — little else. 
Your humble Servant, 

/. Dumbleton. 

Tyler, in his Williamsburg, also states that it is believed 
the mill was in use as late as 1770. In a report made to 
the London Lords of Trade, relative to the affairs of the 
colony at this time — printed in the Virginia Magazine of 
History and Biography for 1896 — Governor William 
Gooch recorded the fact that "We have likewise a Paper- 
Mill." 

There seems to have been no other contemporary evi- 
dence of the existence of this mill. Parks died in 1750 on 
the ocean, returning to England. His will, which was 
probated in Yorktown, Va., June 18 of that year, has no 
reference to any mill owned by him at that time. His 
estate was valued at £ 6,211 15s. 9d. 

Connecticut had no paper-mill until after the middle of 
the century. Christopher Lefflngwell erected a mill upon 
the banks of the Yantic river in Norwich in 1776 and there 
made all kinds of paper, printing, writing, wrapping, car- 
tridge and sheathing. The quantity annually produced 
has been estimated at one thousand three hundred reams, 
and the prices commanded varied from 4s 6d to 45s per 
ream. Ten or twelve hands were employed. The mill 

35 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 



was an object of great interest in the community. A 
private letter, written in October, 1767, said of it: 

"The Paper-mill at Norwich is plentifully supplied 

with rags, and has full 
demand for its paper. 
Mr. Throop tells me 
that he had viewed it 
when at work ; that it is 
a curiosity ; that they 
mould and make ready 
for the Press about ten 
sheets per minute by the 
watch." 37 

Although admittedly 
the mill was erected to 
meet a pressing eco- 
nomic necessity of the 
community it was not 
financially successful in 
the beginning and gov- 
ernment aid was asked 
for to keep it going as 
an undertaking of public 
importance. In May, 
1769, the general assem- 
bly of the colony grant- 
ed to Leffingwell an 
annual bounty of "two 
pence the quire on all 
good writing paper, and 
one penny the quire on 
all printing and coarser 
paper" that should be 
manufactured by him. 38 
In 1772 the assembly 
resolved "that the . pay- 
ment of said bounty be discontinued for the future, and 
said grant is hereby repealed." The bounty paid to Leffing- 

"' Frances M. Caulkins : History of Norwich, Connecticut, p. 607. 
38 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, XIII., pp. 212 
and 580. 

36 




Christopher Leffingwell. 

Reproduced by permission from Mary E. 

Perkins' Old Houses of the Antient 

Town of Nonuich, Conn. 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

well amounted to £81, \6s, Sd. In 1775 the edition of The 
Connecticut Gazette containing an account of the battle of 
Lexington and Concord was printed on paper from this 
mill. In the following year Leffingwell had his son-in-law, 
Thomas Hubbard, associated with him and the mill in the 
hands of Hubbard and his descendants continued in opera- 
tion far into the next century. 

Nearly fifty years elapsed from the time when Bradford 
essayed to start a mill in New York before the first in 
that colony was eventually established. This was on Long 
Island under the encouragement of another printer, Hugh 
Gaine, who was scarcely less distinguished in his calling 
than Bradford had been. It was built in Hempstead, on 
the shore of Hempstead bay, about 1768, by Hendrick 
Onderdonk and Henry Remsen. 

"The first grist mill on this part of the island, it is 
believed, was erected here about a century since 
[1743] by Henrick Onderdonk, and he and his son 
Andrew afterwards built a paper mill also, which was, 
it is presumed, the first established in this state. Hugh 
Gaine, a noted printer and bookseller in the city, was 
connected with these gentlemen in the manufactory 
of paper, which has been continued at this place ever 
since. 6 

Writing from New York, under date of May 7, 1768, 
to Lord Hillsborough, of the London Board of Trade, 
concerning manufactures in the colony, Governor Henry 
Moore said that he would "be particularly attentive to any 
new Establishments of which we have no instances since 
my last letter, except in the paper-mill begun to be erected 
within these few days, at a small distance from the 
Town.'' 40 Probably this reference was to the Hempstead 
mill although the date does not quite agree with the ap- 
proximate date assumed by the historian Thompson. 

In the provincial convention of Maryland, May 25, 1776, 
James Dorsett came forwaid with a proposition to build a 
paper-mill. Dorsett was a member of the convention and 
that body promptly took action as follows : 



Benjamin F. Thompson: The History of Long Island, I., p. 58. 
The Documentary History of the State of New York, I., p. 736. 

37 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"Resolved, That the sum of four hundred Pounds, 
common money be advanced to James Dorsett, of 
Baltimore County, he giving bond with sufficient se- 
curity to repay the same within two years, without 
interest, either in cash or Writing or Cartridge Paper, 
or in such proportions of each as this or a future 
Convention, or Council of Safety in their recess, shall 
direct and order ; that is to say : one-third part thereof 
within twelve months, and the other two-thirds within 
the date of said bond ; he at the same time engaging 
to build a Mill for that purpose within six months 
from the date of his said contract; and to sell to the 
inhabitants of this Province any kind of paper which 
he may make as cheap as the same can or shall be sold 
at any Mill in the Province of Pennsylvania." 

Confirming this resolution of the convention the Mary- 
land Council of Safety, June 5, 1776, ordered that the 
treasurer of the Western-Shore should "pay to Mr. James 
Dorsett £400, like [common] money, to enable him to 
erect a Paper-Mill." 41 

An early attempt was made to begin paper-making in 
North Carolina. The German Moravians who originally 
settled in that state established several industries there 
before they moved north into Pennsylvania. Among these 
was a paper-mill which was started in Salem, as early as 
1766, according to some authorities. More than half a 
century later this mill was still in existence ; as a North 
Carolina historian recorded it: 

"In the neighborhood of the town are several mills 
built in the Middle or Bushy fork and other small 
branches, as paper &c." 42 

This one lone mill was quite incapable of meeting 
public needs in that part of the country, as is revealed in 
the correspondence of that time, private and official. When 
the colonial congress of North Carolina met in Hillsbor- 
ough, in September, 1775, the state of the manufactures 
of the colony was seriously considered and action taken 



41 Peter Force: American Archives, 4th Series, V., p. 1600 and 
VI.. p. 1467. Archives of Maryland, II., p. 465. 

"Francois Xavier Martin: The History of North Carolina, I., 
appendix, p. liii. 

38 



OTHER MILLS OF THE COLONIES 

to encourage them. To the end that a paper-mill might 
be secured it was resolved : 

"That a premium of two hundred and fifty pounds 
be given to the first person who shall erect and build 
a mill for manufacturing of Brown, whited Brown, 
and good writing paper, and which mill shall be actu- 
ally set to work, and thirty Reams of Brown, thirty 
Reams of whited Brown, and thirty reams of writing 
paper, at least be produced to the provincial Council, 
and approved of by the said Council within eighteen 
months from this time ; the .Brown paper to be of 
equal goodness to Brown paper imported from Great 
Britain of the price of two Shillings and sixpence 
Sterling per Ream, the whited Brown equal in good- 
ness to whited Brown paper imported of the price of 
three Shillings Stirling per Ream, and writing paper 
equal in goodness as aforesaid to Eight Shillings 
Sterling per Ream." 48 

It was not until more than two years later that there 
was any response to that appeal, as far as the records indi- 
cate. In December, 1777, John Holgan, of Orange county, 
appeared before the congress and secured favorable action 
upon his petition that the premium should be paid to him 
if he should be able to produce the paper as required 
within eight months. In August of the next year Holgan 
again appeared and, saying that he had erected a mill but 
had been unable to make the full quantity of paper on ac- 
count of the lack of water, secured an extension of time 
of six months. Further evidence of the existence of this 
mill is in an advertisement "for rags for the Paper Mill 
just erected near Hillsborough in Orange County," printed 
in the North Carolina Gazette, November 14, 1777. 4 * 

The provincial congress of South Carolina, in session 
in November, 1775, considered the subject of the encour- 
agement of manufacturing in the colony, especially salt- 
petre, sulphur, bar-iron and steel, nail rods, gun locks, 
paper, lead and linens. Among other resolutions one was 
passed : "That a premium of five hundred Pounds cur- 



43 William L. Saunders : Colonial Records of North Carolina, X., 
p. 217. 

44 Walter Clark : State Records of North Carolina, XT., p. 804, 
XII., pp. 413, 417, 812, 875. 

39 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

rency be given to the person who shall first erect and es- 
tablish a proper Paper Mill in this Colony, upon produc- 
ing three reams of good writing paper, manufactured 
thereat." Probably in response to this appeal, William 
Bellamy appeared before the congress, March 22, 1776, 
and presented a proposal for erecting "a proper Mill, for 
making Paper, and cutting Files at the same time," and 
the congress, favorably considering the proposition, voted : 

"That the sum of three thousand Pounds, currency 
be advanced to the said William Bellamy, out of the 
Colony Treasury, on loan, for the term of five years, 
free of interest, in consideration, and for the express 
purpose of his forthwith erecting a proper Mill for 
making Paper and cutting Files, in as great perfec- 
tion as in any part of Europe; he, the said Bellamy, 
giving undeniable security . . . for the perform- 
ance thereof, and for repayment of the said sum." 45 



45 Peter Force: American Archives, 4th Series, IV., p. 72. V., pp. 
598 and 606. 



40 



CHAPTER THREE 

A PAPER POVERTY 

Mills of the Colonial Period were Few in Number 
and Poorly Equipped — Importations were Slow 
and Scant — Newspapers Resorted to Curious 
Make-shifts — Extraordinary Scarcity During 
the Revolution — Legislative Action to Encour- 
age Manufacturing and Conserve Supply 

OAPER-MAKING did not keep pace with paper- 
-*• using. Despite the starting of a few mills the 
scarcity of paper was more and more decidedly felt in all 
parts of the country from 1700 on. Public needs steadily 
increased with the growth of population and the resultant 
social, industrial and commercial expansion and this in- 
creased need was quite in excess of the ability of the 
market, domestic or foreign, adequately to meet. Partly 
this was owing to the financial insufficiency of the mass of 
the people and partly to the difficulties attending the estab- 
lishment of a new industry where there was a dearth of 
the indispensable raw materials. Much, however, was 
fairly chargeable to the studied and persistent opposition 
of the mother country, though, in this particular, the situ- 
ation was not peculiar to paper ; it prevailed in the case of 
nearly all manufactured necessities. 

In connection herewith there is no call to dwell at length 
upon the familiar history of the colonial period. As soon 
as there were indications that manufacturing industries 
were likely to develop in the colonies the jealousy of the 
British manufacturers was aroused, for they had always 
regarded America as altogether an exclusive market for 
their goods. The British government, acutely responsive 

41 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

to such argument, and also alive to the political importance 
of deriving revenue from the colonies and at the same time 
keeping them under control, discouraged and in every way 
endeavored to prevent the establishment of manufacturing 
enterprises that might be expected adversely to affect the 
interests of the mother country. 

As regards paper a single instance will suffice to illus- 
trate this watchfulness. In 1732 and 1733 the subject of 
the pernicious industrial activity of the colonies was 
brought up in parliament and the lords' commissioners 
for trade and plantations were commanded, June 15, 1733, 
to investigate, and to prepare "an account of the Laws 
made, Manufactures set up, and Trade carried on, in any 
of His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in America 
which may have affected the Trade, Navigation, and 
Manufacturers of this Kingdom." The report made by 
the commissioners stated, among other things, that: 

"In the Massachusetts Bay, an Act passed in the 
Year 1728, intituled, An Act for the Encouragement 
of Making Paper. This Manufacture . . . has 
hitherto made but a small Progress, and can hardly 
be said, in a strict Sense, to interfere with our own 
Paper, because almost all the Paper sent to New Eng- 
land is foreign Manufacture ; but it certainly inter- 
feres with the Profit made by our British Merchants 
upon the foreign Paper sent to this Province. How- 
ever no Complaint has ever been made to Us against 
this Law." 

"Mr. Belcher, the present Governor of this Province 
[Massachusetts Bay] . . . acquainted us . . . 
That about Three Years ago a Paper Mill was set up, 
which makes to the Value of about Two hundred 
pounds Sterling per annum. And he hath since in- 
formed us that there hath lately been a new Paper 
Mill set up at Falmouth in Casco Bay, which at that 
Time [1731] had not begun to work for want of 
Materials." 48 



" The Belcher Papers: In Collections of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society, Sixth Series, VI., pp. 68, 70 and 489. David Mac- 
pherson : Annals of Commerce, III., p. 186. Representation of the 
Board of Trade, relating to the Laws made, &c. in His Majesty's 
Plantations in America to the House of Lords, January 23, 1734. 
pp. 5 and 12. 

42 



A PAPER POVERTY 



The mills referred to were that in Milton, Massachu- 
setts, and that of Waldo and Westbrook in Maine. 

Notwithstanding all efforts to repress domestic indus- 
tries and to hold colonial trade at the command of the 
British manufacturers and shippers, importations were not 
easy nor voluminous and most imported goods were costly. 
This was particularly true of paper. England, still be- 
hind in this branch of manufacturing, could in no wise 
supply the colonial market which continued to be starved ; 
for the domestic mills that had sprung up were as yet so 
few in number and so limited in capacity that they were 
far from being able to make up the deficiency. 

Then came the stamp act of 1765, and, in 1767, the 
Townshend measures placing import duties upon glass, 
paper, pasteboard, lead, painters' colors and tea. Ulti- 
mately this legislation was beneficial since it provoked the 
industrial and political revolt that led to independence. For 
the moment however it only served to intensify feeling 
against trade restrictions and to aggravate the economic 
situation. The non-importation and non-intercourse agree- 
ments of the colonists gave added impulse to native enter- 
prise, but it was years before industrial stringency could 
be brought to an end, in paper as in all else. 

Many makeshifts were resorted to in meeting difficulties 
that arose from this shortage of paper. Newspapers par- 
ticularly were great sufferers for they were the largest 
consumers, and evidence of the straits into which they 
were forced has been fully preserved in them. In some 
instances the regular weekly issues were omitted because 
there was no paper. Frequently they were printed upon 
paper of diverse sizes, colors and qualities, whatever the 
worried printer might be able to find. 

Often curious typographical vagaries were compelled 
by the necessity of economizing. Printed matter was 
squeezed in on the margins, outside the usual width of 
the printed page, sometimes in narrower column measure 
than in the body of the paper. 47 The New York Mercury, 

9 The Boston News-Letter, May 29, 1760. The New York Mer- 
cury, July 30, December 3 and December 31, 1764; February 18, 
March 4, and May 20, 1765. 

43 



For Sale, at Curler's Vtadue-Roorr), 

Tin* Day, Check Lutfli, Sheeting, Inih Lisvana, Broad 
Clotht.Foreftdo. < i >»Je», leant, F turiani, 

Meat end W«n»« Si'i -', do. NijlU- 

Clflj Show, Boott, Fell, CaaW »ad Be*»*r H»i, GoW laced, 
do. 4tc. Ami on TtK&tjF, I* titt Gfxrego-Markce, a quantity 
o* damaged Goods. 

damIgedgoods. 

TO-Mort -o» »«I b« fold a* the Merchant '» Coffee- Bon*, 
1> o'Ciock, • Qwaotitr of tUraiMd Sail Dock, Mo. I, a, 
and j. and Check Linen, Alfe «»ew Ba«« of Hard Soap. 

TO-MORROW, 

AT j o'clock in the Alttfnooo, will be IbW k Vendue, the 
Houfe an >>r to pr, Bard'i » tit a 

>*iy Commodity, Lot, and the Psnirntiuna large, being 5< Feet 
>« length on both Sides j and in Pi-oat and Rear ax F«i, Botch 

»»»» X«» »xr«»»tV« »» » «« »x t» »« « »< «» * *:,»<•<* 

! ®o be testa, at paMfr vBtniwf > 
y// P«»V/\ Pergereaut Pmdue- Store, 

AT the Hou* of WtUnm Hawtkra*, opfwtjt* '8«rlinr'<- 
Stlp, oo Trmr««y the atft Itift. t»<> MEM JapptuTd Cafe 

Eigbt-Day Clock,, aCtoc* wttiwiBa'Ca*, atSUvtr Tankard, 
Tea-Pot, Sugar-Box, and Spoooa, — And every Bay teejpoled 
tor Sale, at laid Store, ttfcf rwHomng ©God,, *t*,. Scarier CAoakx, 
feme Reoionnhl «t te». iiaiWMvi, Plot*, Jap- 

pa»"d Waittra, Do. 8i > iticoata, Glafa 

Lanthnrn,, Shoo, &c, &c. ■ : 

<if « tw teste," neat, 

ON Tuelday toe lis... > . aett, at tot Mercbant'a 

Coflee-Houft.tbe ) '„<iod,no.*tnPoiTalUt>« 

or ifaac txtteueh, to Queen t:rv*t. oppofite the Treafurer't, 



' 






■Co tt feoto at pttfetit lifn&K, 
By ISAAC MAN, and JOSEPH FORM AN, 

,Oo lot loth Day o* March «?»J, on tile PYnrnlct ( 

THE Moum-plealattt Forge, « SpniiaSeM, New-Jti fey j con- 
tilting ot two fciea and one hammer, known by (he name ol 
irbertrom fctiaaberh- 
d lying 



• Work,, eight 

c tbrge, and about t 



nd a hart i 









,i,a i 



- ._ be bad l*r a trifle, very handy j i*,id a number < 

e^hbanrs nave obliged theromve* by wrttinge under their 

Midi, to turnno ntoodttt n««0wofy««r» 

i tuffit ] within three S;V< :-■; ;s The *wti of the 

.i't fiirgt i', allowed by men <*f judgement, to DC a? comnkat 



There is a ftrong dam, 
iiftam fii'eain, not liable to tail by drought, 

e; it ia allh fed hy fpnoge, and confennentl) 
,j/d by t'rott, Tliere tstundry d»e:iinr h- 
Jtack (mitb'a (bop and' 



y rtcady and 

itablt to be 

i eoal-bmrta, 

Sam, 3 garden, and many other 




tpremilea. There »id alfo be fold, coait, 
orfd wood,horfee,<atrlejtea»», and taekie, together with th« 
houibold goode, &v\ for Jurtber pertietibrs, e»qui.e erf Haac 
Men, or jotepb Fon»a«»i i,i Ne* . York, or Mr. Fottw, lining 
on sije premttea, . °> . : ., 

#.,*#»**.#* **»*«**»«; »*•«••«••• •*•«**«• 

Extraordinary Encouragement, 

FOR fober, bonctt. Butt ioilvivrKm:. Hr mt-ra, Carpeottra, 
Mill. Wrighta, Win ' la Coogew, and 

J>.4t Voiidera « <rh»M. ■ihete FamUiea, 

iaejiiJt (hciirltef May neat, fxlw :,inetrCrowu 

PniiM, in tiie County of' Albany, Apply pafiboailr, or by 

"%'l LLIAM GILL1LAND, 

VBTio »ant« at tiie above Settlement, Twenty Cowe in Calf, Ten 
Yoke of Or.en, and one Boll i to Be all young and large. Tbey 
mutt be delirer'd at Croietuftdntj eariy in tbd Month of M»y 
next. 2: An* Perfbn wiiltng to cootr*e* tor them are de&red to be 
Ijieedy i n fending Itim rheir Propofala. _ . 

JAMES MURRAY 

Crags*;* «W 'Af-»hmn,lmi ummui Ht thffrm ttt Mtd'Marlft, 
t« tJ* ftmft M t»« »»»r Owe «/ t*» tfj-Xatkrt, tut**? Mr. Wit- 

A Frelit Aflorttnent of the very beft 

jfmvii-r \)fa$g.t, if<m tJt* i^bwato-ifi i« Lon^km. which h« 
kih y *tt «4.rt \» rh*ap *« my hot!? ft. Ttf'tn, oj' «qua3 Gttt-dMU. 
At S.e n'iw* co.tftaot AttwdMicc, Vsaily *i\A oibtr frtfariptU 
on* OuH Ix* tfthi'l'S.lly marf* up, ««(. HftlVin*b!y ehAfgff^, CfflBl- 
m.-nuiistramr^^Wt*^ Pf..cHriorwrf in thtConnlT^ thaU b* 
howeftly exertrtarf, and cbatrfeti iow.ftnitf'iair , «"«* 



^5 j| CsH'il 




A Printer's Paper Economy. 

From the New York Mercury, February 18, 1765. 



A PAPER POVERTY 



at this time, usually had two wide columns to a page. One 
issue of four pages had on each of two pages, two wide 
columns of print and a single narrow column run close up 
to the outside edge of the page ; on each of the other two 
pages were two wide columns and more text, the same 
width of column, printed in reverse position, up and down 
the margin. 48 Sheets of paper that had come from the 
mould damaged or imperfect or that may have been torn 
in the handling were not thrown away ; on the contrary 
they were kept and carefully repaired by pasting in order 
that they might still be used on the press. So skillfully 
was this repair work done that even now it is difficult to 
detect in copies of newspapers where such sheets were 
utilized. 49 

In this exigency a certain Boston printer and stationer — 
Thomas Fleet — had an unexpected stroke of good for- 
tune. A Spanish ship, sailing for some Mexican, West 
Indies or South American Spanish destination, in 1748, 
was captured by an English cruiser and taken into the 
port of Boston. There her cargo was discharged and 
sold, among the rest being several bales of papal bulls or 
indulgences printed on small sheets of very good paper. 
Fleet bought the entire lot for a low price and used it in 
his business, printing popular songs or broadsides on the 
backs of the sheets. Sometimes two songs were printed 
on the back of a single sheet. Such printings of Black- 
Eyed Susan, Handsome Harry, and Teagne's Ramble to 
the Camp and others have been preserved. He also ad- 
vertised these bulls for sale, in his newspaper in this wise : 

"Choice Pensylvania Tobacco-Paper to be Sold by 
the Publisher of this Paper, at the Heart & Crown in 
Cornhill, Boston; where may also be had the BULLS 
or Indulgences of the present Pope Urban VIII. 
either by the single Bull, Quire or Ream, at a much 
cheaper Rate than they can be purchased of the 
French or Spanish Priests, and yet will be warranted 
to be of the same Advantage to the Possessors." 50 



^The New York Mercury, October 1, 1764. 

49 J. Leander Bishop : A History of American Manufacturers, I 
p. 206. The Albany Register. 

50 The Boston Evening-Post, November 14, 1748. 

45 .*.... 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

With the breaking out of the war in 1775 the situation 
became even more serious. Calls for paper for official 
purposes, such as correspondence, military and legislative 
orders, documents and records, and for newspapers, broad- 
sides, political papers and sermons, increased tremend- 
ously. Importation was stopped completely and the home 
manufacture was greatly hindered, because practical 
paper-makers were hard to find ; either they had gone away 
with the British regiments to which they belonged or 
whose protection they sought, as tories, or they were 
patriots eager to serve in the continental army. 

In the annals of that time we find frequent expression 
of the inconvenience of this paper poverty. General Philip 
Schuyler, writing to General Washington, from Albany, 
August 27, 1775, said: "Excuse these scraps of paper; 
necessity obliges me to use them, having no other fit to 
write on." Again, writing from Ticonderoga, August 14, 
1775, to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, the same officer 
said : "Having very little paper left, I am under the neces- 
sity of sending this without cover and which also induces 
me to get your honour to send a line to Colonel Mott to 
make all possible haste up. 51 John Adams in a letter from 
Philadelphia to his wife in Massachusetts, under date of 
April 15, 1776, wrote: "I send you, now and then, a few 
sheets of paper; but this article is as scarce here as with 
you." On May 6, 1776, Colonel David Gilman wrote to 
the New Hampshire committee of safety: "My officers 
here make a great complaint for the want of paper. They 
cannot receive the necessary orders, and make proper re- 
turns of their companies, for want of that article." 53 

Fly leaves from printed books were eagerly sought and 
blank leaves from old account books were prizes. A 
manuscript journal of the British house of commons, of 
the Cromwellian period, in sixteen volumes, is in the 
library of the New York Historical Society. How it came 
to this country is not known, but before the revolution it 



M Peter Force : American Archives, 4th Series, III., pp. 135 and 
443. 

M Peter Force : American Archives, 4th Series, V., pp. 942 and 
1218. 

46 



A PAPER POVERTY 



was in Morristown, N. J. There the volumes served a 
good purpose, for "their ample margins had been partially 
used by a commanding officer of the Continental army 7 
when paper was scarce, to write his orders upon. 53 

A general order from Washington's headquarters in 
New York, July 24, 1776, directed the brigadier-generals, 
colonels and commanding officers to send in an estimate of 
the quantity of paper which they needed. Upon receipt of 
this estimate, which appears to have been promptly made 
as an emergency measure, the following order was issued, 
from headquarters, on July 29 : 

"The Quartermaster-General is directed to furnish 
twelve quires of Paper to each Regiment, per month, 
viz : one quire to the Commanding Officer of the Regi- 
ment, one to each Company, and one to the Adjutant; 
the remaining two quires to be kept by the Colonel, as 
a reserve for special occasions, exclusive of Orderly 
books and blank Returns." 54 

Again and again urgent pleas were sent out to induce 
those who might perhaps have in hand a little paper, to 
bring it in for the army needs. An example of this re- 
quisitioning is a general order from the headquarters of 
General Gates, at Ticonderoga in August, 1776, as follows: 

"All persons possessed of any whited brown or 
white paper may have ready money for it at Head- 
Quarters, or the like quantity and quality immediately 
returned upon its arrival from Lake George."™ 

The Southern colonies also suffered severely. Paper- 
mills had not been established there before the revolution 
and dependence for supplies was placed upon the north or 
upon foreign importations. The safety committee of 
North Carolina closely watched the stock of paper in the 
market, ordering the selling or the holding of it as oc- 
casion seemed to require. In connection with one sale it 
was particularly directed "that one ream be purchased for 



BS John F. Watson : Annals and Occurrences of New York City 
and State in the Olden Time, p. 67. 

64 Peter Force : American Archives, 5th Series, I., pp. 578 and 
678. 

65 Peter Force: American Archives, 5th Series, V., p. 1126. 

47 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

the use of this committee only." 56 One ream only ! Could 
anything more strikingly make manifest the meagreness of 
supply and the patriotic moderation of the committee? In 
1781 General Jethro Sumner of North Carolina, in the 
field, wrote to Colonel Ashe: "Be pleased to have sent me 
Six Quire of paper and a box of wafers." About the 
same time Governor Thomas Burke, of the same state, 
wrote from Williamsborough to Major Tatom: 

"I request you now to procure me a rheam of writ- 
ing paper from Mr. John Kelly, & to send it by the 
bearer. Let Mr. Kelly be assured that I will see him 
paid in tobacco or money (at his election) a reason- 
able price ; and that when I come up, I will agree with 
him for his whole quantity." 57 

In March, 1782, Colonel Robert Burton wrote to Gov- 
ernor Burke : "I have not at this time one quire of paper, 
nor the means of procuring it." In the same month Colonel 
Nicholas Long also notified the governor that : "the camp 
is nearly destitute of paper." 58 Note the extreme modesty 
of these requests and the quiet, uncomplaining manner in 
which these patriots told their simple wants. 

In 1783 Thomas Davis, the public printer, reported to 
the North Carolina assembly that he had been to great 
trouble and expense "in procuring paper to print the acts 
of the last assembly" and the assembly, deciding, after in- 
vestigation, that "neglect of not having the journal of the 
last session printed did not proceed from Mr. Davis but 
merely from want of paper" made him an allowance there- 
for. 69 At the sitting of the assembly in May of that year 
it was considered necessary to appoint a special commit- 
tee "to devise ways and means to procure writing paper 
for the present session, it evidently appearing there will 
be a want of that article." 

Instances like the foregoing could be multiplied a hun- 

56 William L. Saunders: The Colonial Records of North Caro- 
lina, X., pp. 298 and 305. 

57 Walter Clark: State Records of North Carolina, pp. 447 
and 564. 

59 Walter Clark : State Records of North Carolina, XVI., pp. 
222 and 536. 

69 Walter Clark : State Records of North Carolina, XIX., p. 167. 

48 



A PAPER POVERTY 



dred fold without exhausting the subject. Congress, com- 
mittees of safety and other patriot directing bodies were 
compelled to take cognizance of the condition of things and 
were continually resolving, voting, decreeing and ordering 
in endeavors to keep the mills going and to increase the 
paper supply. In Pennsylvania there was special activity 
in this respect, for more than one-half the paper used in 
the colonies was then made in or near Philadelphia. The 
continental congress sitting in that city early recognized 
the importance of keeping the paper-makers at their trade 
rather than on the battle front. In July, 1776, Henry Katz 
and Frederick Becking, on behalf of themselves and other 
paper-makers in the county of Philadelphia, memorialized 
the committee of safety for Pennsylvania : 

"That if all the Paper Makers, Masters, Appren- 
tices, and Journeymen within the Ages aforesaid, [16 
to 50] should now leave the Trade and follow the 
Camp, then all and every the Paper Mills in Philad'a 
County, making the Majority of Paper Mills on this 
Continent, must immediately be shut up, and, of 
course, in a few Weeks, the printing offices, even Cart- 
ridge Paper, would soon fail." 60 

Perhaps in response to this plaint the congress resolved, 
on July 19, 1776: "that the paper-makers in Pennsylvania 
be detained from proceeding with the associators to New 
Jersey." 61 Confirming and supporting this action the 
Pennsylvania council of safety, August 9, 1776, enacted the 
following : "The Honorable Congress having resolved that 
the Paper-Makers in Pennsylvania be detained from Pro- 
ceeding with the Associators to New Jersey, all officers of 
this State are Required to pay a strict Regard to the 
same." 62 

New York was not less disturbed than Pennsylvania. 
In a letter, dated May 29, 1776, Charles Loosely and 
Thomas Elms, paper-makers, petitioned the provincial 



60 Pennsylvania Archives, 2d Series, I., p. 615. 

61 Journals of the Continental Congress, V., p. 593. Pennsylvania 
Evening Post, July 27, 1776. 

62 Minutes of the Council of Safety, in Colonial Records of Penn- 
sylvania, X., p. 680. 

49 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

congress of New York to exempt them from military ser- 
vice, setting forth that : 

"We humbly beg leave to represent, that we were 
regularly bred in England to the business of paper 
making, which we understand in all its branches, and 
have carried to higher degrees of perfection than ever 
it arrived before in America, where we have been the 
means of increasing the number of paper mills, im- 
proving their construction, and moderating the price 
of paper. But the work being carried on at great 
expense, (no less than twenty shillings per day for 
rent, and a number of hands, who require our con- 
stant oversight and direction,) we could not attend the 
forementioned military exercises but at an excessive 
disadvantage and expense ; which would certainly 
either ruin the business, or oblige us to discontinue it ; 
for the rent would still go on, and the water run to 
waste; the workmen left to themselves might neglect 
or spoil the work ; disorder and habits of idleness 
take place, and effectually put an end to that atten- 
tion, care, industry and frugality, that are absolutely 
necessary to give success to this business. Nor could 
it have been in our power to supply you, gentlemen, 
with the paper for the Provincial money, nor the 
printers, with whom we have contracted, with the 
quantities necessary for their weekly publications, 
which will not admit of disappointment." 63 

A few months later, in August, the same paper-makers, 
with John Holt, printer, associated with them, again 
memorialized the New York congress: 

"Your memorialists humbly propose that an im- 
mediate order of this honourable Convention be issued 
to prevent the paper-makers from being compelled or 
permitted to go upon military service, since, in the 
present infant state of that necessary manufactory, the 
check it would receive in either of these cases would, 
in all human probability, entirely suppress the manu- 
factory, which has been for many months past, and 
is at present, the only means of supply of paper to 
every department and business in the State, which, 
without it, would be laid in the most distressing and 
extensive difficulties, which will be obvious to every 
one upon the least consideration. 



1 Peter Force: American Archives, 4th Series, VI., p. 615. 

50 



A PAPER POVERTY 



"If this matter should be thought deserving the no- 
tice of this honourable House, it is humbly requested 
that they would, as speedily as possible, issue their 
orders, since the least delay may irretrievably ruin 
some paper manufactories which have supplied the 
Continental stores with great quantities of stores 
absolutely necessary for publick service, have supplied 
several other necessary businesses, and are now, by 
being compelled into military service, upon the very 
point of dissolution." 64 

Prompt action was taken upon the last memorial, the 
congress voting, August 14, to exempt from military ser- 
vice the master workman and two attendants at each mill 
then in operation. John Holt, who joined in the petition, 
was a famous printer of the revolutionary period. From 
New Haven, Conn., where he was well established, he 
moved to New York and in that city published The New 
York Gazette and Post Boy and The Nezv York Journal. 

So scarce indeed was paper in New York at that time 
and after, that even the civil government found difficulty, 
sometimes unsurmountable, in procuring sufficient for its 
needs. In 1779 Robert Boyd and Samuel Loudon peti- 
tioned the legislature "praying permission to raise Three 
Thousand Pounds by Lottery to enable them to erect and 
carry on a Paper-Mill." Apparently this project was not 
then carried out, for, twelve years later, on the first day of 
the meeting of the legislature in 1791, Samuel Loudon, 
who was then the state printer, sent a communication to 
the assembly in relation to the procuring of paper for 
printing the legislative journals. A committee appointed 
to consider the subject recommended that money should 
be raised by lottery "to encourage the making of paper in 
the state," and a bill was prepared for that purpose. Six 
reams of writing paper was considered the utmost allow- 
ance possible for the governor and legislature, in a legis- 
lative resolution of 1781. 

Massachusetts officially manifested similar consideration 
for the welfare of the mills. In 1775 the second provincial 
congress of that colony, sitting in Watertown, received the, 



4 Peter Force: American Archives, 5th Series, I., p. 1510. 

51 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

petition of John Boies and Hugh McLean that four ap- 
prentices skilled in paper-making, who had enlisted, should 
be discharged from the service that they might return to 
work in the Milton mill. The petition and the answer of 
the congress were as follows : 

"To the Honorable the Congress of the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay assembled at Watertown, 
the petition of James Boise and Hugh McLean of 
Milton humbly sheweth. 

"That your petitioners carry on the business of 
manufacturing paper at Milton which has been 
deemed of great utility to the Public, that John 
Slater, James Calder, William Durant and William 
Pierce now inlisted in the Provincial Service were 
all of them apprentices of y e petitioners, and have 
attained to so great a knowledge in the art of pa- 
per making that their attendance in the business 
is absolutely necessary to its being carried on. That 
they have done the principal part of the work and 
labor at your petitioners Mills for two years past ; 
and unless they are released from the service they 
are now in, tis impossible for your petitioners to 
continue this so useful and necessary branch of 
American Industry. 

"Wherefore your petitioners pray that the said 
John Slater, James Calder, William Durant and 
William Pierce, may be, by order of this Honorable 
Congress, dismissed as soon as may be, from the 
service of the Provincial Army. And y e petitioners 
as in duty bound shall ever pray." 

"In Provincial Congress, May 16, 1775. 
"Resolved — that the prayer of the within petition 
— Be so far granted, that considering the small 
number of persons within the Colony who carry on 
the manufactory of paper, and the great Demand 
and Necessity of that article for the use of said 
Colony, that the petitioners be desired to apply to 
General Thomas, that he may order the within 
named four soldiers to serve the public in carrying 
on the manufactory of paper at the said petitioners 
paper works at Milton." 64 x " 2 

At a meeting of the committee of safety of the same 



6412 Public Archives of Massachusetts, liber 180, folio 18. Printed, 
in Albert K. Teele's History of Milton, Mass. (1887), P- 377, 

52 



A PAPER POVERTY 



congress, in May, 1775, announcement was made that a 
prisoner held in Worcester was a capable paper-maker ; 
an order was forthwith issued that he should be removed 
to Milton for the need of the mill there. 65 

Frequently during the war the patriots were so short of 
paper for purely military purposes that operations were in 
danger of being seriously hindered on that account. Paper, 
especially that suitable for cartridges, was seized whenever 
the emergency arose. In March, 1778, the Pennsylvania 
council of safety, then in session in Lancaster county, gave 
orders to Colonel Andrew Boyd to proceed to the Willcox 
mill in Chester county and seize all paper there and 
promptly take it to some place of safety, "as it is probable 
that the enemy will counteract the design unless you con- 
duct yourself with great secrecy and dispatch." It is to 
the credit of those who were responsible for this war 
measure that the paper thus seized was receipted for and 
subsequently paid for. 

Printers' and publishers' paper stock, used and unused, 
was drawn upon and a great deal of hot shot was poured 
into the ranks of the enemy wrapped in equally hot ser- 
mons, tracts and political addresses printed. The supply 
of the Ephrata mill was often availed of for military pur- 
poses. The story is told that a few days before the battle 
on the Brandywine, in September, 1777, messengers from 
the continental army were sent to that mill for paper for 
cartridges. No paper was on hand, but the brothers of the 
community gave up an edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs 
which happened to be then ready for the bindery. Also, at 
Germantown, the printed sheets of a large part of the last 
edition of the Saur Bible, 1776, were confiscated and used 
for the same purpose. 

Nor were these the only instances of the patriots being 
forced to extreme measures to supply themselves with 
cartridge paper. When the American army entered 
Philadelphia, in June, 1778, there was need for paper for 
that purpose, but little could be found in the city. In this 



" The Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, in 
1774 and 1775, edition of 1838, pp. 228 and 549. 

53 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

emergency about twenty-five hundred copies of a sermon 
upon Defensive War, written to rouse the colonists during 
the French-Indian war, were discovered in the garret of a 
house where Benjamin Franklin had previously conducted 
his printing business. These were seized and promptly 
turned into material for offensive war, as cases for musket 
cartridges for the troops in the battle of Monmouth. 66 




Nathan Sellers. 

Maker of Paper Moulds in Pennsylvania in the Revolution Period. 

Scarcity of paper-making machinery added to the 
trouble. Much of this machinery had been imported from 
England and when worn out could not be replaced easily. 
Moulds especially were very scarce and there was no wire 
in the country to reface them. Here and there was a 
mechanic who could make moulds but he was a rare indi- 
vidual whose work was jealously regarded. One such was 

66 The Historical Magazine, VIII., p. 151. 

54 



A PAPER POVERTY 



Nathan Sellers of Darby, Chester county, Pennsylvania. 
In 1776 he abandoned his work and joined the continental 
army in New Jersey. The paper-makers who were de- 
pendent upon him for their moulds petitioned congress 
praying "that Nathan Sellers, an Associator in Colonel 
Paschall's battalion and who has marched to New Jersey, 
may be ordered to return home and make and prepare suit- 
able moulds, washers and utinsels for carrying on the 
paper manufactory." 

Congress recognized the urgency of the situation and 
when the petition was presented, on August 20, 1776, it 
was quickly and favorably acted upon. Sellers was dis- 
charged from the service ten days later and returned to 
his work at home. He was then the only manufacturer of 
moulds in the country, and the continental authorities, 
holding that it was of the utmost importance to keep up the 
paper supply as well as could be, and placing much de- 
pendence upon him, engaged him for a time to make 
moulds exclusively for the government. It was intended 
that this should enable the mills to produce more promptly 
and more safely the proper water-marked paper for official 
purposes. An order of congress, in May 1778, gives evi- 
dence of this special employment of Sellers : 

"Ordered, That there be paid to Mr. Nathan Sellers, 
for making a fine paper mould to manufacture paper 
for bills of exchange, and for his expences coming to 
York town, and returning home, 164 50/90 dollars." 07 

When the Pennsylvania council of safety, in 1778, or- 
dered Colonel Boyd to seize the paper in the Willcox mill it 
also revealed the value placed upon these Seller's moulds 
by advising that officer that: 

"Mr. Willcocks has in his possession a Mould for 
making paper belonging to this State, which I request 
you to bring away. It is marked with the word Penn- 
sylvania in 24 places. He did promise, if the enemy 
came that way, he would throw it into the Mill 
Dam." 68 



"Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 136, II., folio 265. 
Journals of the Continental Congress, XL, p. 415. 
** Pennsylvania Archives, 1st Series, VI., p. 355. 

55 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Sellers was of a family that for several generations had 
been engaged in wire weaving and other manufacturing 
of like character at the homestead known as Sellers' Hall 
in Darby township. He belonged to the Society of Friends, 
but forfeited his membership by his militant activities in 
the revolution. He built up a large business in wire weav- 
ing and mould making, establishing himself in Philadel- 
phia about 1779. He was succeeded by his sons and grand- 
sons, and the business steadily grew in importance for 
more than half a century, expanding as time went on into 
the manufacture of various kinds of paper-making ma- 
chinery and also machines for iron furnaces and rolling 
mills. Nathan Sellers died in 1830, aged eighty years, and 
his son and intimate business associate, Coleman Sellers, 
survived him only four years. 68 1_2 



The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897. 



56 



CHAPTER FOUR 

EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

Colonial Paper Was All Hand-Made — Machinery 
Unknown — Mills Hampered by Difficulty in 
Procuring Raw Materials — Newspapers and 
Legislatures Implored People to Help by Saving 
Rags — The Early Methods of Manufacturing — 
Some Prices of Paper in 1729, 1780 and 1792 

DURING the greater part of the first hundred years 
of its existence, American paper-making was 
indeed a feeble industry. Many things operated to its 
disadvantage, cramping its efficiency, curtailing the va- 
riety and amount of its production and retarding its devel- 
opment. For at least fifty years after Rittenhouse began 
in 1690 the mills were few in number, small and meagrely 
equipped; capable workmen were hard to find; machinery 
was of the simplest kind ; methods were slow and crude. 

A list of the items of personal property in a lease of 
Thomas Brown to Thomas Willcox in 1732, conveying a 
half interest in the third Pennsylvania mill, sufficiently 
shows the scant equipment available at that time. It is 
particularly interesting when considered in comparison 
with what constitutes the outfit of even the smallest of 
modern mills. 

"A mortice and [hajmmers, a Vatt and Pott, two 
Stuff Tubbs, a Rag knife and Block, one press paper 
mould and a pair of Shop paper moulds, twenty-six 
fulling paper felts, Seventy-seven shop paper felts, 
two press paper Planks and a halting plank, two £hop 
paper Planks, a Press and Rag wheel, a screw and 
Box, a Glazeing Engine, two pairing knives, two little 

57 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

pails with iron hoops, one smal ads, two pairing 
frames — one pairing Bench, three cocks, two troughs, 
one winch, a halfting bench, two tressels, a Iron Barr, 
six posts and Eighteen Rails for hanging of paper, 
one hundred polls for hanging paper, one pad, one 
pair of Stilliards, a Box for Paper Hanging stool, one 
hundred and sixty Tap pots, twenty cogs and three 
washers." 69 

Later on some of the mills were more pretentious es- 
tablishments though still infinitely far from the modern 
conception of what constitutes a proper plant. The prin- 
cipal improvement was in the introduction of the beating 
engine which, of Holland origin about 1750, gradually 
came into use in the American colonies to a modified 
extent. The first mill in central Massachusetts, built by 
Abijah Burbank in 1775, was considered one of the best in 
the country. 

"It was a two-vat mill. A breast-wheel twelve feet 
in diameter furnished the power to drive the greatest 
portion of the machinery in the mill, which was com- 
posed of two engines with rolls two feet in length and 
twenty-six inches in diameter, one duster and a grind- 
stone with which to sharpen the bed-plates to the en- 
gine. The rags were cut by hand on a scythe fixed 
in a post, or a long knife, and five men with ten or 
twelve girls made up the required quota of help. By 
running the two engines to their full capacity, the 
accustomed fifteen hours per day, they were able to 
turn out from two hundred and thirty to two hundred 
and fifty pounds of paper daily or about one thousand 
five hundred pounds per week." 70 

The equipment of a really first-class mill toward the close 
of the eighteenth century is shown in a description con- 
tained in the inventory of the mill erected in 1789, in An- 
dover, Mass., as follows : 

"A building occupied as a Paper Mill, 36 by 32 
feet, with two vats upon the ground floor, which have 
a Cast Iron pot in each of them, sunk into Brick 
chimneys, for heating the vats. The first floor has 



69 Joseph Willcox : Ivy Mills 1729-1866, p 6 

70 E. B. Crane: Early Paper Mills in Massachusetts: In Collec- 
tions of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, VII., p. 121. 

58 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 



two engines for beating-stuff, a room for dressing 
rags, with a brick chimney and fire place, also two 
other rooms for rags. The second floor is occupied 
for a Rag ware-house. 

"Another building connected to the mill by a cov- 
ered passage way of 20 ft. long, used for drying and 
keeping paper before finished, 20 by 24 feet, at the 
end next the mill ; a part of the drying-house is taken 
off for a finishing room, 27 by 24 feet, in which is a 
cast iron stove used in the winter season. At one 
side of the finishing-room is a sizing copper set with 
bricks and brick chimney. Another building 35 feet 
from the mill, that is 24 ft. by 20, for Rags and fin- 
ished paper. Another building, 131 feet from the 
mill, 20 x 13 ft., for Rope and other lumber." 71 

The first mill in western Pennsylvania, that of Jackson 
& Sharpless in 1796, was regarded as an extraordinarily 
imposing establishment, described by a local newspaper as 
"very capacious," The mill building was about seventy- 
five by forty feet, three stories high, and the entire plant, 
which included a blacksmith shop, machinery and work- 
men's houses, represented an investment of six thousand 
dollars. 

A curious and exceedingly interesting chapter in this 
history of early paper-making in America is that which 
treats of the persistent and not always successful struggle 
for raw material to keep the mills going. Rags then con- 
stituted the essential fundamental for the industry. Ex- 
periments had been made with other materials, but nothing 
had been discovered as an available substitute. And yet 
rags were not plentiful and, for more than a hundred 
years, the existence of the industry was constantly imper- 
iled by this scarcity. The population of the country was 
not large, and it was scattered. Clothing was not dis- 
carded until after careful and long-wearing, for the col- 
onists were poor and the climatic conditions bore severely 
upon them. In the absence of any incentive to saving, the 
rag-bag had not become a common adjunct to the house- 
hold. 

After paper-making began, a long and tedious process 



71 Sarah Loring Bailey : Historical Sketches of Andover, p. 583. 

59 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of education was necessary before the people generally 
could fully realize that this new use for old things hitherto 
thrown away rendered the habitual keeping of them worth 
while to families and of public advantage. In adver- 
tisements that appealed to patriotism and pocketbook 
newspapers implored this saving and legislative bodies 
urged the common need in frequent resolutions. The 
state of mind of those who had the general welfare most 
in view is shown by the way in which editors and legis- 
lators steadily emphasized the importance of rag saving. 
This emphasis was even exhibited in the typography of the 
advertisements and legislative records, for the word 
RAGS was always capitalized or set in large letters; in 
this respect it had the same typographic distinction that 
was given, for example, to Queen, or King, or President, 
or Parliament, or Congress. One newspaper expressed 
the fervent hope that every man would say to his wife, 
"Molly, make a rag-bag and hang it under the shelf where 
the big Bible lies." Another wished that every child should 
be taught his "rag lesson." 

Specific instances of these advertisements and legislative 
enactments sufficiently demonstrate the importance that 
was attached to the encouragement of the industry in this 
respect. An early advertisement in The New York Gaz- 
ette and Mercury, of which Hugh Gaine was the publisher, 
establishes the interest which that printer had in the first 
mill in the New York colony and also reveals the diffi- 
culty which this mill, in common with all others, exper- 
ienced in the shortage of raw material. 

"The printer of this paper, in conjunction with two 
of his friends [Hendrick Onderdonk and Henry 
Remsen], having lately erected a PAPER MILL at 
Hempstead Harbour on Long-Island at a very great 
expense, the existence of which entirely depends on 
a supply of RAGS which at present are very much 
wanted; he therefore most humbly entreats the as- 
sistance of the good people of this province, and city 
in particular, to assist him in the undertaking, which, 
if attended with success, will be a saving of some 
hundreds per annum to the colony, which has been 
constantly sent out of it for Paper of all sorts, the 

60 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

manufacturing of which has but very lately originated 
here; but should the public countenance the same it 
is more than probable that branch will be brought 
to considerable perfection in this place. The highest 
price will therefore be given for all sorts of Linen 
Rags, by the Public's Humble Servant, HUGH 
GAINE." 72 

Another advertisement, thirty years later, — a reproduc- 
tion of which from the columns of that newspaper is given 
herewith, — showed that the printer and his paper-mill were 



J? READY MONEY 

4 For Clean LINEN RAGS, 

g? May he had from H. GAlNE- 

p A ND tor »he {Hither Encouragement of fuch poor Per- Jh 
^ J\ ion* as *r: w i.lins t-oemnloy themfelvesio procuring <** 
»P Rrt.GS, th* ioUowjng PHEMtUMfs will be given. ^» 

y To the Pcrfon that delivers the greateft Quantity of 4 
jL good clean dry Linen'Rags to H. Gairie, in the Year 1765, Jb 
% not 'lefs than looolb. TEN DOLLARS, beftdes being cr 
*£ paid the full Value of the Rags. S& 

r JY>!hePerfbn that drivers the fecond greatefl- Quan- "| 
<fv- tity of Ra«s. of the i .1: - K.'.nl, not lefs than 800 lb. in Jff 
*j the Year 1765, RIGHT DOLLARS. g* 

jfc To tiie Perfon that delivers the third greateft Quantity ^ 

5 of Rags, of the fame jfctnd Jikewile, in the Year 1765, I 
&-FIVE DOLLARS. m 
*K A Book will be kept to enter the Names of all fuch Per- JF 
m fons, as htfmg Rags, and the Quantity they deliver } and ^ 
2 the Premiums will be paid the fir ft Day of the Year 1766, 1 

6 hy H. GJINE. ** 



still struggling with the same problem that had long before 
been pressing for solution. 73 

The first mill in Massachusetts enlisted the assistance 
of the first colonial newspaper in this search for rags. 
Probably the newspaper looked to the mill for its paper 
and so the two were in a measure interdependent. This 
is the advertisement that the Boston newspaper published : 

"Advertisement. — The Bell Cart will go through 



72 The New York Mercury, October 4 and 1.1, 1733. 

73 The New York Mercury, January 7, 1765. 

61 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Boston, before the end of next month, to collect Rags 
for the Paper Mills at Milton, when all people that 
will encourage the Paper Manufacture may dis- 
pose of them. They are taken in at Mr Caleb Davis's 
Shop at the Fortification. Mr Andrew Gillespie's 
near Dr Clarke's : Mr Andras Randal's near Philip's 
Wharf : and Mr John Boris's in Long Lane : Mr 
Frothingham's in Charlestown, Mr. Edson's in Salem, 
Mr John Harris in Newbury, Mr Daniel Fowle's in 
Portsmouth, and the Paper-Mill at Milton." 

"Rags are as beauties that concealed lie, 
But when as paper, how they charm the eye ; 
Pray save your rags, new beauties to discover, 
For paper truly every one's a lover. 
By Pen and Press such knowledge is displayed 
As wouldn't exist, if Paper was not made. 
Wisdom of things, mysterious, divine, 
Illustriously doth on Paper shine." 74 

When the first provincial congress in Massachusetts 
met in Salem in 1774 the committee on manufactures re- 
ported the necessity of encouraging the making of paper, 
and the convention voted: 

"That as several paper mills are now usefully em- 
ployed, we do likewise recommend a preferable use 
of our own manufactures in this way ; and a careful 
saving and collecting of rags, &c. And also that the 
manufacturers will give a generous price for such 
rags, &c." 75 

A year later the proprietors of the Milton mill memo- 
rialized the provincial congress that they were not able to 
get sufficient quantity of rags even though they had raised 
the price that they were willing to pay. Accordingly the 
second congress, at its session in February, 1775, at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., took action as follows : 

"Therefore. Resolved, That it be recommended, 
and it is by this Congress accordingly recommended, 
to every family in this province, to preserve all their 
linen, and cotton and linen rags, in order that a man- 
ufacture so useful and advantageous to this country, 



74 The Boston News-Letter, March u and 23, 1769. 
78 The Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 
1774 cmd 1775, edition of 1838, p. 64. 

62 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

may be suitably encouraged : and it is also recom- 
mended to our several towns, to take such further 
measures for the encouragement of the manufacture 
aforesaid, as they shall think proper." 76 

Then, in February 1776, the Massachusetts house of 
representatives, the council concurring, took this action 
on the rag situation: 

"Whereas, this Colony cannot be supplied with a 
sufficient quantity of Paper for its own consumption, 
without the particular care of its Inhabitants in sav- 
ing Rags for the Paper-Mills : 

"Therefore, Resolved, that the Committees of Cor- 
respondence, Inspection and Safety, in the several 
Towns in this Colony, be, and they hereby are re- 
quired immediately, to appoint some suitable person, 
in their respective towns, (where it is not already 
done), to receive in Rags for the Paper-Mills ; and 
the Inhabitants of this Colony are hereby desired to 
be very careful in saving even the smallest quantities 
of Rags proper for making Paper, which will be a 
further evidence of their disposition to promote the 
public good." 77 

The mill in Sutton, Mass., upon which the printers of 
the central part of the state almost entirely depended 
during the revolution, was in similar straits and appealed 
to the patriotism of the ladies for help. 

"It is earnestly requested that the fair daughters 
of Liberty in this extensive country would not neglect 
to serve their country by saving, for the Paper Mill 
in Sutton, all Linen and Cotton-and-Linen Rags, be 
they ever so small, as they are equally good for the 
purpose of making paper as those that are larger. 
A bag hung up at one corner of a room would be the 
means of saving many which would be otherwise lost. 
If the ladies should not make a fortune by that piece 
of economy, they will at least have the satisfaction 
of knowing that they are doing an essential service 
to the community, which with eight pence per pound, 



76 The Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 
1774 and 1775, edition of 1838, p. 94. 

77 Peter Force : American Archives, 4th Series, IV., pp. 1308 and 
1455. 

63 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

the price now given for clean white rags, they must be 
sensible will be a sufficient reward." 78 

Not less alert than the patriots of Massachusetts were 
those of Pennsylvania. The records show how, in January 
1776, the committee of safety in that colony urged the 
printers to help the paper-mills : 

"By Order of the Board the following Advertise- 
ments were sent to Messrs. Hall & Sellers, and 
Messrs. Bradfords, and the other Printers of this city, 
requesting them to publish them in their next Papers : 

"As Rags and Lint are essentially necessary for 
the publick service, this Committee most earnestly re- 
quest the inhabitants of this City to collect what old 
Linnen they have, and can spare ; and, in the course 
of next week, persons, properly authorized under the 
hand of the Secretary of the Committee, will call at 
their houses to receive." 79 

* Even the dignified and aristocratic American Philoso- 
phical Society of Philadelphia, founded largely through 
the instrumentality of Benjamin Franklin, felt constrained 
to give attention to the subject. At a meeting of the 
society, March 5, 1773, a committee was appointed "to 
confer with such persons in this City as are concerned in 
the Paper Manufactory on the most probable Means of 
firmly establishing that branch of business amongst us." 
At the meeting of the society on March 19 following: 

"Robert Bell waited upon the Society this Evening 
with a plan for encouraging the Undertaking. 
Adopted, with a few alterations, and ordered to be 
published in the several Newspapers of this City. 
The Money to be paid in Premiums is subscribed by 
Messrs. Crukshank, Dunlap, Hall, Bell & Humphreys, 
& Mr. Bell engages to collect it whenever the Society 
pleases, as will more fully appear by the Subscription 
Paper delivered by order of the Society, to the Treas- 
urer." 80 

At a subsequent meeting of the society a further en- 



n The Massachusetts Spy, November 26, 1778. 
n Peter Force: American Archives, 4th Series, IV., p. 1562. 
*• Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, p. 78. 
In Vol. XXII of Proceedings. 

64 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

dorsement was given. The plan, thus impressively pro- 
claimed, was simple enough, as it was finally disclosed in 
the announcement in the newspapers; the now familiar ap- 
peal for rags. This was the advertisement: 81 

THE American Philosophical Society, taking 
into consideration the state of the Paper 
Manufactory in this province, find the only 
obstacle to its being improved and greatly extended, 
is the want of a sufficient quantity of Linen Rags; 
that this want proceeds principally from the persons 
who have the greatest opportunity of saving them, not 
properly considering their usefulness, but frequently 
burning or otherwise destroying them, when, with a 
very little trouble, they might be preserved, and be- 
come the means of affording employment to a number 
of useful persons, besides the advantage of saving 
large sums of money in America, which are now 
Annually sent to Europe to purchase paper. The 
Society therefore request the Masters and Mistresses 
of families to promote the saving Rags in their houses, 
and as a farther encouragement than the price of rags 
will bring, propose to give the following Premiums : 
To any person who shall save, in one family, 
the greatest quantity of Linen Rags (and 
sell the same for the purpose of making 
White Paper in this province) before the 

first day of May, 1774, £5 

To any person who shall save and sell as 

aforesaid the next greatest quantity, 3 

For the third greatest quantity, 2 00 

For the fourth greatest quantity, 1 00 

For the fifth greatest quantity, 10 

A number of persons having at times employed 
themselves in collecting Linen Rags for the Paper 
Mills, in order to excite them to greater diligence, 
the following Premiums are offered. To any person 
who shall, before the 

first day of May, 1774, collect the greatest quan- 
tity of Linen Rags, suitable for making White 
Paper, and sell the same for that purpose in this 

Province £5 00 

To any person who shall collect, and sell as 

aforesaid, the next greatest quantity... 3 
For the third greatest quantity 2 00 

w The Pennsylvania Gazette, March 31, 1773. 

65* 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

For the fourth greatest quantity 1 00 

For the fifth greatest quantity 10 

Ready money, and the usual Price, for any quantity 
of Clean Linen Rags, may be had of John Dunlap, 
Printer, in Market-street, or Joseph Crukshank, 
in Third-street opposite the Work-house, Phila. 

Certificates of the quantity of Rags sold each 
month, quarter, or as may best suit the seller, from 
the persons who are purchasers, will be deemed the 
same as if they were all sold at one time. 
By order of the Society 

Robert Strettell Jones, Sec." 

The proprietors of a mill in North Carolina went even 
beyond their northern contemporaries in the fervor of ap- 
peal for rags. Not content to rest alone upon the argu- 
ment of patriotism and self-interest they animated their 
plea with a flavor of delicate romance, showing that, to 
them, business had something more than a merely sordid, 
material side. Their advertisement read: 

"By our unhappy Contest with Great Britain, and 
the Necessary Restrictions on our Trade, Paper has 
been an Article for which we, in this State, have much 
suffered, for though there are many Paper Mills in 
the Northern Colonies, where Paper is made in great 
Perfection, yet, by the Interruption of the Colony 
Trade by Water, the Southern Colonies have experi- 
enced a very great Scarcity of that necessary Article. 
To remedy this Evil and throw in their Mite towards 
the Perfection of American Manufactures, the Pro- 
prietors of a Paper Mill just erected near Hills- 
borough, in Orange County, give Notice to the Public, 
that their Mill is now ready to work, and if a suffi- 
cient Quantity of Rags can be had, they will be able 
to supply the State with all Sorts of Paper. They 
therefore request the favour of the Public, and more 
particularly the Mistresses of Families, and the Ladies 
in general, whose more peculiar Province, it is, to 
have all their Rags and scraps of Linen of all Sorts ; 
old Thread Stockings, Thrums from their Linen 
Looms and every kind of Linen, is useful. As this 
Undertaking is Novel, saving of Rags may perhaps 
be thought too trifling, and below the Notice of the 
good Matrons of the State; but when they consider 
they are aiding and assisting in a necessary Manu- 
facture, and when the young Ladies are assured, that 

'66 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

by the sending to the Paper Mill an old Handkerchief, 
no longer fit to cover their snowy Breasts, there is a 
Possibility of its returning to them again in the more 
pleasing form of a Billet Doux from their Lovers, the 
Proprietors flatter themselves with great Success. 
Persons in the several Towns and Counties in the 
State will be appointed to receive Rags, for which a 
good Price will be given." 82 

When the first mill was started in the western part of 
Pennsylvania, the usual newspaper notice was printed and 
the people were called upon to help the enterprise, the 
dominant note in the announcement being the customary 
entreaty for rags. 

"The advantages accruing to our community from 
this addition to its manufacture will be very great, and 
it behooves every well-wisher to the community to 
contribute his mite toward the supporting it. It can- 
not be carried on without a supply of rags. Of these 
every family can supply more or less, and there will 
be stores in every town and various parts of the 
country ready to receive them. Every patriotic family 
then will doubtless cause all their rags to be preserved 
and forwarded to some place where they are collected, 
not so much for the pecuniary advantage to be derived 
from them as for the pleasure arising from having 
deserved well of their country. We shall shortly be 
furnished with a list of such store-keepers as can 
make it convenient to receive them, and shall then 
announce their names to the public." 83 

Advertisements in the newspapers of Albany, N. Y., 
before 1790, called attention to a mill in Bennington, Vt, 
and urged the need of rags for its maintenance. Ladies 
were invited to visit the mill and witness the process of 
paper-making so that they might thereby be influenced to 
save rags. Postmaster Buel of Troy, N. Y., joined in the 
appeal and offered to help by receiving rags at his store. 
At one time this mill depended a great deal upon the cast- 
off clothing of the Indians and it is believed that the 



82 Walter Clark: The State Records of North Carolina, XL, 
p. 804. The North Carolina Gazette, November 14, 1777. 

83 The Western Telegraphe and Washington Advertiser, January 
12, 1796. 

67 . _ 



PAP ER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

aborigines were persuaded in many specious ways, not 
always honest, to give up their clothing sometimes before 
it had really reached the rag condition. 84 

Primitive methods only were applied in the processes of 
the early mills. All work was by hand. For preparing 
pulp there were big stone or iron vats or mortars; few 




Interior View of Early Mill for Hand-made Paper. 

mills had more than two vats and many had only one. In 
these vats, filled with water, the rags were beaten to a pulp 



84 John Woodworth : Reminiscences of Troy, p. 46. 

In amusing contrast with this condition of things and showing 
some of the changes that a century had brought about was a state- 
ment in the California State Register for 1859 where^ the existence 
of a paper mill in Marin county, that state, was mentioned as turn- 
ing out six tons of paper per week, seemingly a remarkable per- 
formance. And one of the great benefits ascribed to this enter- 
prise was the "clearing out of the cast-off garments which for 
years have carpeted the streets of San Francisco and every city 
and town in the state." 

68 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

by heavy hammers wielded by hand. From the vats the 
pulp was ladled into rectangular moulds made with wire- 
cloth strainers and deckles. As the pulp was flowed into 
these moulds the thin sheets were interlayed with sheets 
of felting cloth. Heavy pressure was then brought to 
bear upon the mass, to squeeze out the water and further 
to flatten the sheets of pulp into sheets of paper. Then 
the sheets were taken out one by one and hung on poles 
to dry in sheds or rooms open to free currents of air. 

As far as possible the white rags were set apart for the 
making of the better qualities of paper, but a general and 
careful sorting of these raw materials so as to keep those 
of different colors and qualities entirely separate was not 
always practicable. Accordingly, for a considerable part, 
all went into the vats together and the natural result was 
a pulp of a dirty white or brownish color. No means were 
used to correct this color condition either before or after 
the formation of the sheet and no practical method of 
bleaching was known. Purifying or clearing the water 
used in the pulp process does not seem to have been even 
considered necessary and the water was clear and pure 
only as it might so come in its natural state from its nat- 
ural sources. A desire to have this water supply as clean 
as possible, existed, however, and mill sites were selected 
not alone from considerations of water power, but as well 
where clean water could be assured. Few streams were 
then contaminated, for defilement by sewage and chemical 
and other refuse was as yet unknown. 

No method had been devised for producing a smooth 
surface beyond what might come from heavy pressure. So 
the paper went into the market unbleached and uncalen- 
dered, and the peculiar dark — brown or gray — color and 
sometimes mottled hue, seen in some of the books and 
newspapers of the period, is thus accounted for. Oc- 
casionally artificial coloring matter, most frequently blue, 
was introduced into the pulp and a bluish writing or print- 
ing paper produced. Newspapers were from time to time 
printed on paper of this color. 85 The pulp engine from 



86 The Connecticut Courant, 1775. 

69 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Holland was introduced about 1760 but did not come to 
general use until long after that date. It was well into the 
next century before other machinery of importance ap- 
peared. 

In spite of all these drawbacks improvements were made 
in the tools used, in the treatment of the raw materials and 
in methods of manufacture. Naturally these improve- 
ments were not of great importance but they did assist in 
developing the industry and improving the character of 
the product. On this point it has been remarked : 

"The improvement in paper making, at Willcox's 
and other mills in Pennsylvania, were principally 
owing to an Englishman named John Readen. He 
was a man of great personal ingenuity; and a first 
rate workman. He had indentured himself to the 
master of the vessel who brought him from Europe. 
Willcox redeemed him, and employed him several 
years. He died in 1806, aged sixty." 89 

That statement is true in a small measure only. Others 
contributed to improvements in tools and processes even 
more than John Readen. Most notably was this so, first of 
such men as William, Claus and Jacob Rittenhouse; Wil- 
liam De Wees, Thomas and Mark Willcox, and Christopher 
Saur, father and son; and then of those who came on 
in later times, particularly in Pennsylvania and Massa- 
chusetts. These were proprietors of mills but primarily 
they were trained paper-makers and quite as much 
to them — to say no more — as to any of their employees, 
credit is due for improvements that enabled paper-manu- 
facturing to develop in the first century of its existence. 

Prices that prevailed have been preserved in many mer- 
chant accounts of those days. There is a statement of 
account between Andrew Bradford and Claus Rittenhouse 
of Philadelphia, dated June 27, 1729. Rittenhouse is 
charged with various items, including seven hundred and 
ten pounds of rags, £4, 8.y, 9d, and he is credited with paper 
sold from his mill to Bradford, as follows : S7 



88 Isaiah Thomas : History of Printing in America, I., p. 24. 
. " Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XII., p. 370. 

70 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

1729 June 27 By 36 lb press Papers at 

9 d £2 2 

July 3 By 1 Ream writing paper 

at 14. By 3y 2 Reams 
Printing paper at 7/6 2 3 
12 By 4^2 Reams Brown pa- 
per at 4/6. By 2^ 
Reams printing paper 
at 7/6 By 45 lbs press 
paper at 9 d per lb By 
2 Reams of writing at 

14/ 4 19 9 

17 By 3 Reams Large print- 
ing paper at 10/ 1 10 

22 By \y 2 Reams printing 

Large at 7/6 10 9 

August 14 By 11 Reams printing pa- 
per at 7/6 10 9 

23 By 14 y 2 lb Fine press pa- 

pers at ll d 4 2 6 

Septem br 6 By 7 Reams of Brown 

paper at 4/6 13 3 

20 By Sy 2 Reams of printing 

paper at 7/6 Ill 6 

22 By 30 lb press papers at 
ll d By 20 pound press 
papers at 10 d 3 8 

27 By 15 lb of press papers 

at By 3 lb Coarse at 1 10 5 
October 18 By 16 lb Paist Board at 
By y 2 a Ream of writ- 
ing paper 12 

25 By 86^ lb Bonet paoer at 
9 d By a Ream of 

Brown 3 11 \0y 2 

November 17 By 3 Reams writing at 14 
By 2 Reams Brown 

4/6 2 6 6 

December 3 By A2 J / 2 lb paist Board at 
7 d By 2 Reams of 
Brown paper at 4/6 
By 1 Ream printing. .246 

11 By 2 Reams Brown paper 

at 4/6 7 6 

20 By 2> l / 2 Reams Brown pa- 
per at 4/6 By 1 Ream 
writing paper 1 9 

71 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

January 17 By 5 Reams Brown paper 

. at 4/6 1 2 6 

March 6 By 5 Reams Brown paper 

at 4/6 By 2*/ 2 Reams 
Printing paper at 7/6 2 13 
1730 April 6 By ]/ 2 Ream writing at 14 7 



£36 12 3 

In Massachusetts, toward the end of the century, the 
mills usually had two vats and employed ten men and as 
many boys and girls. The annual product was about seventy 
thousand reams of writing, printing and wrapping paper. 
A two- vat mill required a capital of about $10,000 and 
its capacity of production annually was from two to three 
thousand reams of all kinds. Printing paper then com- 
manded a price of from three to three and a half dollars 
per ream and considerable had to be carried in reserve for 
customers. The mill in Andover, according to the testi- 
mony of one of its owners, a year after it had started in 
1791, was carrying stock "in paper of different qualities" 
to the value of "not less than three thousand dollars," also 
rags and utensils worth "not less than a thousand more," 
and "credits to the amount of nearly two thousand." 
This was not a large business even for that time but 
evidently it was sufficiently complicated to give the owners 
some cause for worry. 

In central Massachusetts, in 1777, the price paid for 
linen or cotton and linen rags was three pence per pound ; 
in 1778, eight pence ; in 1779, twelve pence, eighteen pence 
and two shillings; in 1780, three shillings and six shillings 
and in 1781, ten shillings. A rising market surely. The 
Troy, N. Y., mill, in 1792 and after, offered three pence 
per pound for clean white rags and two pence for blue, 
brown or checked rags. About the same time the pioneer 
mill in western Pennsylvania was offering four cents per 
pound for white rags and was selling all the paper that it 
could produce for one dollar per quire. In 1787 Colonel 
Nicholas Long requisitioned the governor of North Caro- 
lina for supplies for his military camp and submitted in 
his estimate that he should need "specie to purchase 20 

72 



EQUI PMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 

Reams Writing Paper £120." 88 In 1780 James Davis, the 
state printer, presented to the general assembly of North 
Carolina a memorial reciting the difficulties under which 
he labored and the losses he sustained in printing for the 
state. Therein he referred to the "very extraordinary 
Rise in Paper, that Article now selling at Newbern from 
Eighty to one Hundred pounds per Ream." This was a 
war price, but even at that, it seems bigger than it probably 
was in reality for the pound was not the pound sterling but 
the colonial pound which in federal currency was about 
three dollars and thirty-three cents. 89 

Wages were considered high, but measured by present- 
day standards they seem absurdly small. Thomas Hough- 
ton of the mill in Andover, Mass., wrote to his former 
home in England, in 1789, saying that he' wished he had 
some English workmen with him, adding: 

"The wages is a great inducement; for good ones, 
used to writing paper in every stage we would give 
fifteen shillings per week and board, or fifteen shil- 
lings per week and an addition equal to board." 90 

This indicates a weekly wage of about twenty shillings, 
equal to about five dollars, federal currency at that time. 
Allowing for the difference in purchasing power of money, 
then and now, this can scarcely be regarded as a big wage. 
Trained labor in New England then commanded from 
three to four shillings per day. 

Toward the close of the century the industry had suc- 
ceeded in making considerable advance and was in a fair 
way to become a very important manufacture, in the num- 
ber of mills at work, in the quantity and quality of produc- 
tion, and in an ability more nearly to meet the growing 
domestic demand. It still labored under difficulties and its 
shortcomings, especially as compared with its later attain- 
ments, may not be overlooked. But it had accomplished 
much in the economic life of the people and had reached 
a point where it attracted national attention. 



88 Walter Clark : State Records of North Carolina, XVI., p. 536. 

89 Walter Clark : State Records of North Carolina, XV., p. 223 
"Sarah L. Bailey: Historical Sketches of Andover, p. 581. 

73 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Few historians, even among those who have essayed 
particularly to review the economic and industrial devel- 
opment of the country, have gone far enough or carefully 
enough into examination of the records to appreciate the 
actual facts concerning the state of this industry at the 
beginning of our national existence. Undiscriminating 
observers seem to have been content to measure it by its 
more obvious deficiencies, and there let the case rest with- 
out proceeding further. A popular American historian, 
writing of the period about 1784, has said: 

"Paper was both scarce and expensive. Some few 
mills had recently been put up in Pennsylvania, but 
the machinery was rude, the workmen unskilled, the 
number of reams turned out each month by no means 
equal to the demand, and the quality of the paper not 
much better than that at present used for printing 
hand bills and posters. Bristol board seems not to 
have been made in the country and so little of it was 
brought in from abroad that the loss of it was severely 
felt." 91 

The foregoing may be accepted as fairly expressing a 
common opinion among those who have not cared to in- 
vestigate the matter fully. It is, however, far from being 
a complete or accurate presentment. Paper was scarce 
and expensive, it is true, but, all considered, not relatively 
more so than other things at the close of the revolution. 
As usual, war had been destructive in this as in other 
manufacturing industries and, in general, the paper-mill 
condition reflected the condition of the country. Demand 
upon domestic productiveness had been abnormally aug- 
mented by the cutting off of importations during the war 
and in the same way raw materials and machinery had 
been less procurable. Thus from both points domestic 
productivity had not yet been able wholly to master the 
situation. But, steadily it was approaching that goal. 

In the last decade and a half of the century, the mills 
were not "few . . . recently put up in Pennsylvania." 
As has been shown in other chapters of this work, several 
had been successfully working in Pennsylvania, Massa- 



81 John Bach McMaster : A History of the People of the United 
States, I., p. 79. 

74 



EQUIPMENT AND RAW MATERIAL 



chusetts and elsewhere for from fifty to one hundred 
years while a very considerable number of later day — 
from 1750 on — were firmly established in Pennsylvania, 
New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Dela- 
ware and North Carolina. The total annual output cannot 
be now known but it was not small. Of course the ma- 
chinery was, in no wise, comparable with that of today. 
In fact machinery was nearly a negligible quantity, though 
in that respect the mills were not materially inferior to 
those elsewhere in the world. Much of it had been imported 
from Europe, though the war had, for the time being, in- 
terfered with that source of supply. Workmen were not 
unskilled. Many of them, especially the master workmen, 
were fully capable, having learned the trade in England, 
Germany, Holland or France, while for fifty years mills 
of the colonies had been educating men and women to the 
work; even then women were employed. Bristol board 
probably was not made but absence of it was not "severely 
felt" for our ancestors had limited need for it. 

Manifestly absurd to anyone who knows about the paper 
of that period is the statement that "the quality of the 
paper [was] not much better than that at present used for 
printing hand-bills and posters." Some of the paper cer- 
tainly was not superior; in fact none of it was equal to 
the best that is now made. But the worst was better than 
the worst of today and there was little indeed that would 
suffer in comparison with the medium quality of the twen- 
tieth century. As has been already noted, rags were apt 
to be carelessly sorted, pulp was not bleached, machinery 
was not always efficient and processes were far from per- 
fect. That, however, the best paper was in many respects 
very good indeed, examination of newspapers, books, pam- 
phlets, broadsides and other prints, and of correspondence, 
account books, and so on gives evidence. 

Much was lacking in purity and regularity of color; 
this is more observable in the white or natural color paper 
than in the blue or brown; in texture and in strength it 
was generally admirable. Newspapers and books printed 
in the middle of the eighteenth century and before have 
endured, in well-nigh perfect condition, for one hundred 

75 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and fifty years or more, despite much handling and lack 
of care. At most, their pages have merely browned with 
age. Is it supposable that as much will be said of the 
printed sheets of 1900 after another one hundred and fifty 
years ? The anxiety of librarians and book-lovers over the 
already perishing condition of newspapers and books of 
the present generation should be sufficient answer to that. 
Compare a New York newspaper of 1750 with one of 1900 
and note the superior enduring quality of the former. 
Plentiful testimony on this point has been offered. The 
two references following will suffice. 

Horatio Gates Jones made an exhaustive study into the 
history of the Rittenhouse mill. In his report to the His- 
torical Society of Pennsylvania, May 11, 1863, he dwelt 
upon the character of paper there produced, adding: 

"A particular feature in the sketch, and in keeping 
with the subject, is the fact that the paper on which 
it is written was made at the first paper mill in 
America, by the first paper-maker and his son, prior 
to the year 1699." 92 

In an address delivered at the celebration by the New 
York Historical Society, May 20, 1863, of the two hun- 
dredth birthday of William Bradford, John William Wal- 
lace, also referring to the Rittenhouse mills, said : 

"From this mill came excellent paper as I can 
testify, to write or print on. What I read you is 
written on it. I hold you up a sheet of it." 

Still it must not be assumed that all the paper was of 
this good quality. Some of it was inferior and especially 
so in a period long after the first years of the in- 
dustry. Adulterations had become known and were prac- 
ticed, though not in all the mills. Some of the paper early 
in the ninteenth century was not as good as that of a 
hundred years before. It is said that once, in 1816, a set 
of Bibles crumbled to pieces two years after printing. For 
quick perishability that paper was a fair rival of consid- 
erable that was made seventy or more years later. 



M The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XX., p. 
333. 

76 



CHAPTER FIVE 

AFTER THE REVOLUTION 

Slow Industrial Growth of the Nation — Paper-Mak- 
ing Still Confined Mostly to Pennsylvania, New 
York, Connecticut and Massachusetts — New 
Mills in Those and Other States — Legislative 
Encouragement to Manufacturers — First In- 
ventors — Tariff Measures of the Government 

IN the two decades and more immediately before inde- 
pendence from Great Britain had been achieved the 
American colonies had passed through a very varied 
experience in their industrial and commercial interests. At 
one time discouraged and in every conceivable way ham- 
pered by opposing influences and adverse legislation in the 
mother country, these interests were ultimately stimulated 
to a modestly steady and healthful growth by the non- 
intercourse measures that the political situation developed. 
Then the war went still further in bringing about a nearly 
complete commercial severance from Europe, and, to that 
extent, encouraged the growth of domestic manufactures 
and shipping. 

But the war had its disadvantages as well. The parlia- 
mentary restraints that had immediately preceded the seven 
years' contest had not been without deleterious results, and 
in the end the states had been left exhausted in men 
and in means. There had been none of that fictitious boom 
and business inflation that has often accompanied war and 
ultimately encouraged industry. Prosperity did not at once 
ensue. Large importations set in, and the consequent 
heavy drains of specie from the country brought financial 

77 



PAP ER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATE'S 

distress. Money was scarce and credit fell to a low ebb; 
the people were poor, generally speaking, and too widely 
separated from each other to have many common interests 
or to feel much mutuality in enterprise; labor was scarce 
and wages were high; the public debt was large and bur- 
densome, and business suffered under a worthless paper 
currency. 

Still the outlook was not wholly dark. During the more 
than a century and a half of colonial existence the people, 
already of a mixed European racial origin, had developed 
what has come to be known as the American character, and 
by patient toil, sturdy self-reliance and energetic utilization 
of the natural resources of the country they had succeeded 
in building up domestic industries to very considerable 
aggregate value. Some of these industries had even been 
able to furnish small surpluses for exportation, though 
most of them were still in the infant state. The best that 
could be said of them was that they were fairly well estab- 
lished and gave promise for the future as soon as stable 
conditions should gradually come into existence. It was 
upon this foundation that the substantial advancement and 
expansion of American industry could safely be predicated. 

Paper-making, as has been shown in the preceding chap- 
ters, had suffered severely in this period, and it was slower 
than some other industries in recovering from the post- 
revolution depression. Many observers were exceedingly 
sceptical in regard to its immediate future, and the facts 
of the situation seemed amply to justify their Jeremiah 
pessimism. A distinguished Frenchman, statesman and 
political enconomist, traveling in the United States near 
the end of the century, inspected many mills and wrote 
concerning them : 

"Besides the dearness of workmanship, their popu- 
lation cannot furnish them rags in quantities sufficient 
to establish paper mills whose productions would be 
equal to the consumption of the inhabitants. ... In 
proportion to the knowledge which nations may ac- 
quire, and to the liberty of the press, which may be 
enjoyed in America, a prodigious quantity of paper 
must be consumed there; but can the population of 
this country produce rags in the same proportion? It 

78 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



cannot reasonably be hoped that it will. It is there- 
fore probable that the American markets will not for 
a long time be provided with any other than European 
paper, and that this will find a place there." 93 

This was a common opinion at that time, and the French 
writer evidently was influenced in his conclusions by the 
beliefs of the many practical men of affairs and publicists 
whom he met here. Certainly that generation did not see 
much encouragement in the prevailing conditions. 

It would not be possible, nor even if possible, would it 
be particularly interesting or profitable, to make a catalogue 
of all the mills of the first hundred years of American 
paper-making, especially those of later date than 1750 or 
1760. They were sufficiently numerous, all things con- 
sidered, except during the war, when, as we have seen, they 
were not capable of supplying the deficiency caused by the 
interruption of trade with Europe. Broadly speaking, 
however, they were not strong establishments, either finan- 
cially or mechanically. Most of them had only ephemeral 
existence and little or nothing about them has been pre- 
served in contemporaneous records; their history, slight 
and unimportant at the best, was long ago buried beneath 
the dead weeds of forgetfulness. On the other hand, some 
of them — though these were few in number and begun in 
a small way — were, in the course of time, developed into 
substantial and profitable business enterprises enduring, 
either in themselves or in their actual successors, into 
far later times. 

Evidence regarding even the most important of the mills 
of the last quarter of the century is fragmentary and not 
wholly reliable. As near as can be ascertained, there were 
probably not above eighty or ninety mills in the country 
when the war ended. Soon, however, under the stimulus of 
increased demand and protecting tariff legislation, a few 
mills began to spring up slowly, particularly in the middle 
states. De Warville, writing in 1787, said that he had been 
informed of sixty-three mills — forty-eight in Pennsylvania 



93 J. P. Brissot De Warville : New Travels in the United States 
of America. London Edition, 1794, II., p. 168. 

79 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and fifteen in Delaware — their annual production being 
valued at $250,000. At the same time there were mills in 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina 
and elsewhere. In the debate on imports in the national 
house of representatives, April 17, 1789, Representative 
Clymer of Pennsylvania stated that, "the paper mills of 
Pennsylvania were so numerous as to be able to supply a 
very extensive demand in that and the neighboring States ; 
they annually produce about 7,000 reams of various kinds, 
which is sold as cheap as can be imported." 94 

Massachusetts had made a considerable progress during 
the fifty years that had elapsed from the establishment of 
the first little mill in Milton in 1728-1730. Thomas Hough- 
ton, part owner of a mill in Andover, Mass., wrote, in the 
latter part of the century, that there were many mills 
within twenty and thirty miles of the place where he was 
located. One authority has said that in 1796 there were 
three mills in Milton and six, all told, on the Neponset 
river. Another has said that there were twelve in Massa- 
chusetts in 1794 and, again, that there were twenty in the 
state between 1794 and 1796. Of these seven were located 
on the Charles river, several of which were in Waltham 
and Newton, and one each in Worcester, Springfield, 
Andover and Sutton. The annual production of all the 
mills in the state was valued at about $100,000. 

A mill that attained to considerable importance in the 
state at this time was that which was put in operation in 
1779 on the banks of the Charles river, in Newton, about 
eight miles out of Boston. There a dam was built by 
David Bemis and Enos Sumner, who sold a site to James 
McDougal of Boston, Michael Carney of the now fam- 
ous Milton mill and Nathaniel Patten, a paper-maker 
from Hartford, Conn. ; and they erected a mill which 
shortly passed into the hands of Bemis, and, after his 
death in 1790, became the property of his sons, Luke 
Bemis and Isaac Bemis. The mill was burned in 1792 or 
1793, and the owners petitioned the great and general 



"Joseph Gales: The Debates and Proceedings, of the Congress 
of the United States (1834), I., p. 167. 

80 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



court of the state for relief in their distress. The response 
of the legislative body to this appeal is a good example of 
the governmental paternalism that largely prevailed in 
those days. The necessity of extending state financial 
assistance to private business enterprises, as a war meas- 
ure, during the revolution just brought to a close, had 
remained as a public policy of more or less general accept- 
ance. In June following the destruction of the Bemis mill 
by fire the great and general court acted favorably upon 
the petition of the owners : 

"Representing their great sufferings in the loss of 
their stock and paper-mills by fire; and in considera- 
tion of the public advantage to be derived from the 
encouragement of the manufacture of paper within 
this Commonwealth : 

"Resolved, That there be loaned from the Treasury 
of this Commonwealth the sum of one thousand 
pounds to the said Luke Bemis and Isaac Bemis, upon 
their bonds, with good and sufficient security to this 
Commonwealth, for the repayment of the same sum 
at the end of five years; and also to be conditioned 
that the said Luke and Isaac shall rebuild, or cause 
to be rebuilt, within two years from the making of 
such loan, suitable paper-mills of at least equal size 
and extent of the mills lately destroyed by fire, and 
by themselves or their assigns shall prosecute the 
manufacture of paper therein." 95 

It does not appear that the mill was immediately profit- 
ably conducted, for, in 1799, the owners again petitioned 
the great and general court for an extension of time on the 
entire loan and, later in the same year, they petitioned and 
received permission to further postpone their first payment. 
How, if at all, they finally discharged their obligations the 
record does not say. But the business was carried on with 
more or less success for nearly fifty years. Ultimately it 
was abandoned and the building was turned into a cotton 
factory and then into a hosiery mill. When the first rail- 
road came there the place took the name of Bemis Station, 
an appellation that adhered to it forever after. Locally 



"'Resolves of the General Court, the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts, 1793-94, p. 10. Ibid, 1798, p. 51. Ibid, p. 18. 

81 




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AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



it was known as "Tin Horn," from the circumstance that 
for many years a huge tin horn was blown morning, noon 
and night to call the workmen. 96 

Another Massachusetts mill before the end of the cen- 
tury was on the banks of the Charles river, in Waltham, 
near the center of that town. Known as the Boies paper 
mill, this establishment was owned and operated by John 
Boies, of Milton, and produced brown and white paper. 
It was erected soon after 1780, the exact date not now 
being known. It attracted much attention, not only from 
its industrial importance but from its picturesque country 
surroundings. A contemporaneous periodical printed a 
picture of it, with a brief accompanying description : 

"We have the pleasure to present our patrons with 
a south view of Mr. John Boyce's Paper Manufac- 
tory, combining a prospectus of his dwelling house 
and out-buildings, together with a view of the meet- 
ing-house, the seats of Messieurs Townsend and 
Pacy, and Charles River. The situation is acknowl- 
edged to be one of the most elegant and delightful 
in the township of Waltham, and has deservedly ac- 
quired the name of EDEN VALE. It is about ten 
miles from Boston, and one half mile from the Great 
Road on the Plains." 97 

In 1798 this property was valued at £4,550. Subse- 
quently the paper mill disappeared and upon its site was 
erected the first cotton mill in Massachusetts. Also in 
Waltham, about the same time, was a mill built by Gov- 
ernor Christopher Gore, which was operated by William 
Parker, of Cambridge, and then by Major Uriah Moore 
and Enoch Wiswell. A third Waltham mill was started 
about 1798 by Nathan and Amos Upham, brothers who 
had learned the trade in the Boies mill. 98 

To Newton Lower Falls, near Waltham, about 1790, 
came John Ware from Sherburne. He was a brother of 



98 Charles A. Nelson: Waltham, Past and Present (1879), p. 
125. D. H. Hurd : History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts 
(1890), III., p. 104. 

97 The Massachusetts Magazine, April, 1793, p. 192. 

08 Alexander Starbuck : in D. H. Hurd's History of Middlesex 
County, Massachusetts (1890), III., p. 751. 

83 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

the Reverend Henry Ware of Harvard College. The mill 
that he built in Newton was the first in a long line of 
similar establishments that have rendered that place 
famous in the annals of American paper-making." 




An Early Massachusetts Paper-Mill Proprietor. 



Springfield, Mass., attempted to have a mill during the 
time of the revolution. Proprietors of the iron works on 
Mill river conceived the idea and received from the town 



M S. F. Smith: History of Newton, Massachusetts (1880), p. 
272. Francis Jackson : A History of the Early Settlement of 
Newton (1859), p. 105. 

84 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



a grant of lands and privileges. For some reason the grant 
was soon after rescinded and the mill was not built. But 
in 1786 Samuel Babcock owned a mill there and made a 
variety of paper, writing, news, cartridge and wrapping. 100 
Another mill was established in Springfield prior to 1788, 
probably by Eleazer Wright. This, in the next century, 
was developed into the noted and extensive enterprise of 
the famous Ames family. 101 

A mill was built in Andover, Mass., in 1789 by the Hon- 
orable Samuel Phillips, founder of the celebrated Phillips 
Academy. It was operated by Phillips and Houghton, the 
junior partner being Thomas Houghton, an experienced 
paper manufacturer from England. Work was started in 
an old powder mill, but soon was carried on in a new build- 
ing erected expressly for the purpose. Phillips had influ- 
ence in politics — a "pull" we would call it in later time — 
and had arranged in advance with the state printer to 
"take at least to the amount of £1,200 a year" of paper. 
But the business was long in coming to the point of finan- 
cial soundness, for, as the manager complained, in letters 
that have been preserved, competition was considerable, 
rags were high-priced, paper was cheap, and wages were 
high, while long-time and uncertain credit was a trade con- 
dition as necessary as it was discouraging. 

A newspaper publisher's need led to the erecting of a 
mill in central Massachusetts in 1775, or 1776, the sixth or 
seventh in that colony. Isaiah Thomas, one of the great 
colonial printers, was compelled to flee from Boston in 
April, 1775, with the types and press of his famous patriot 
newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy, to escape seizure by 
the British. Reaching Worcester safely he set up his press 
there, the revolutionary committee of safety contriving to 
supply him with paper from the mill in Milton, first "fifty 
reams of crown, forty of demy, twenty of foolscap and 
five of writing paper" and again "sixty reams of crown 
and eight reams of demy." The difficulty of transporta- 



100 Mason A. Green: Springfield, 1636-1886. History of Town 
and City (1888), p. 347. 

101 J. E. A. Smith : Life, Life Work and Influence of Zenas Crane 
(1906), p. 15. 

85 




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S s 



W -5 

H £ 

■ & 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



tion across country from Milton to Worcester led the au- 
thorities to plan for a supply nearer home and at a conven- 
tion of delegates from the towns in Worcester county, 
held May 31, 1775, this action was taken: 

"Resolved, That the erecting of a paper mill in this 
county would be of great public advantage; and, if 
any person or persons will undertake the erecting of 
such mill and the manufacture of paper, that it be rec- 
ommended to the people of the county to encourage 
the undertaking by generous contributions and sub- 
scriptions." 102 

In response, Abijah Burbank of Sutton undertook the 
venture, but it was a full year before he could show results 
and then only with a sample of coarse or ordinary paper. 
It was not until May, 1778, that he was able to inform the 
public, in an advertisement in the Spy, "that the manufac- 
ture of paper at Sutton is now carried on to great perfec- 
tion" ; but scarcity of rags and other troubles long hindered 
him from producing even enough on which to print the 
Spy. For nearly twenty years this mill, managed by its 
founder and his son, Caleb Burbank, was almost the sole 
dependence of the printers of that part of the state. 

But the demands of the press of Thomas, for whom the 
mill had been started, constantly outpaced the supply. 
Isaiah Thomas had become one of the foremost printers 
and publishers of his day in the United States. At one 
time he had sixteen printing presses running ; he published 
four newspapers, several editions of the Bible, historical 
works, law, school and blank books, and controlled book 
stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and 
Maryland. A great deal of paper was naturally required 
to keep his presses going and accordingly he planned to 
build a mill of his own. The mill was put in operation in 
1794 but, in 1798, Mr. Thomas sold it to the Burbanks of 
Sutton, who ran it in addition to their earlier one. 

In 1795 Thomas printed an edition of Charlotte Smith's 
Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, after the sixth London 
edition. In the announcement of this work the printer 



101 William Lincoln : The Journals of the Provincial Congress of 
Massachusetts in \774 and 1775 (1838), p. 651. 

87 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

took occasion to say : "The making of the particular kind 
of paper on which these Sonnets are%>rinted is a new busi- 
ness in America ; and but lately introduced into Great- 
britain [sic] ; it is the first manufactured by the editor." 
The Thomas mill, which was in Quinsigamond village,- 
Worcester, on the Blackstone river, was supplied with two 




Isaiah Thomas. 

Printer, Publisher, Editor and Paper-Mill Proprietor. 

vats of about one hundred and ten pounds capacity, and 
they ran usually fifteen hours each day, employing ten men 
and eleven girls. From twelve hundred to fourteen hun- 
dred pounds of hand-made paper were turned out weekly. 
The skilled engineer who managed the plant received about 
three dollars per week ; vat-man and coucher, three and a 
half dollars each, without board; ordinary workmen and 
girls, seventy-five cents per week each ; boys, sixty cents 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



each, with their board in addition. These were the wages 
that generally prevailed in all the mills throughout the 
country at this time and later. 103 

A third mill in Worcester county, before the century 
L ended, was that of Nichols & Kendall in Leominster, put 
in operation in 1796. 

Rhode Island had its first paper-mill in 1780. Samuel 
Thurber owned a dam across the Moshassuck river in the 
town of Providence and he and his three sons, Martin, 
Samuel and Edward, built a mill. There, in the first years 
of the next century, bank-note paper was made for the 
first banks established locally. Two other mills were in 
Olneyville, a suburb of Providence, in the closing years 
of the century. One was known as the "Brown George" 
and the other as the "Rising Sun." Both were owned by 
Christopher Olney, who marketed his paper from a ware- 
house in the city. 104 

In Connecticut before the end of the century the Leffing- 
well mill of Norwich was followed by several others. On 
the Hockanum river, in East Hartford, afterward Man- 
chester, at the opening of the revolution Ebenezer Watson 
and Austin Ledyard had a mill, the second in the state. Wat- 
son owned the Connecticut Courant and this mill was 
started to supply the press of his newspaper. It also made 
the greater part of the writing paper used in the Connecti- 
cut colony and in the continental army in that part of the 
country. In 1778 the mill was destroyed by an incendiary 
fire. In a memorial to the general assembly of the state, & 
petitioning for relief, the owners fixed their loss at $20,(XX|r' 
and stated that their engagement with the Courant calles 
for paper of a weekly issue of eight thousand copies. 1 ? 6 
Both Watson and Ledyard had died and the property 
was owned by their widows, Hannah Watson and Sa<fah j* t '.„5*jt c 
Ledyard. The assembly extended a helping hand by^fe- '*€ %J 
solving : - 

103 E. B. Crane : Early Paper Mills in Massachusetts. In Collec- 
tions of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, VII., p. 127. 

104 Richard M. Bayles : History of Providence County, Rhode 
Island (1891), L, p. 589. 

105 J. Hammond Trumbull : Memorial History of Hartford 
County, Conn. (1886), II., p. 250. \ 

89 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"That, as the rebuilding the said paper mill is of 
public necessity and utility, the memorialists have 
liberty, and liberty and authority is hereby granted to 
them, to set up and cause to be properly drawn a lot- 
tery at their risque and charge, to raise a sum not ex- 
ceeding fifteen hundred pounds, money, to be to the 
memorialists in proportion to their loss sustained in 
said mill . . . and that the money that shall be 
raised by said lottery shall be appropriated to the 
building of said mill." 106 

A committee of the assembly was ordered to oversee the 
lottery. Subsequently the property passed into possession 
of the widow Watson and after her marriage to Barzillai 
Hudson it was owned by Hudson & Goodwin, who were 
the joint proprietors of the Courant newspaper. 107 

In New Haven about 1776, David Bunce erected a mill 
at Westville and a few years later another one at the base 
of West Rock. Charles Bunce, who was an apprentice in 
this mill, went to Hartford in 1788 and there was in the 
employ of Hudson & Goodwin and of John Butler, who 
had succeeded to the ownership of the Butler & Hudson 
mill that was started before 1784. Bunce, who also had 
experience in the mill in Andover, Mass., purchased an old 
building on Hop brook, Manchester, and began the manu- 
facture of paper on his own account. With him his sons, 
six in number, became associated as they grew to manhood 
and together they built other mills, members of the family 
being celebrated paper-makers for sixty years. 

Other mills were started in Connecticut about this time 
and at the end of the century sixteen were in operation. 
All of them were small affairs, employing together only 
one hundred and sixty workmen and using annually three 
hundred and twenty tons of rags. 108 

More than passing notice of Colonel Matthew Lyon, the 
first paper manufacturer of Vermont, is demanded, in vir- 



106 Charles J. Hoadley : Public Records of the State of Connec- 
ticut (1858), I., p. 503. 

10T J. Hammond Trumbull: Memorial History of Hartford 
County (1886), II., p. 98. Isaiah Thomas: History of Printing in 
America (1874), I., p. 191. 

108 John Bach McMaster : A History of the People of the United 
States (1885), II., p. 64. 

90 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



tue of his notable career. He came from Ireland about 
1756, a boy of ten years of age, having sold himself to pay 
his passage. In a few years he was able to redeem himself 
by working in Connecticut, where he had landed ; and, 
soon after he had come to mature years, he went to Ver- 
mont. From that time on his activity was something re- 
markable. He acquired wealth and influence, married into 
one of the old-established families of Vermont, built many 
mills, was one of the founders of the town of Fairhaven, 
established a democratic newspaper and had other business 
interests. A man of brilliant qualities of mind, he natu- 
rally took an interest in public affairs and led a stormy 
political life on the rostrum and in the state assembly, being 
known as "the roaring Lyon of Vermont." An uncom- 
promising democrat, he fought the federalists on the plat- 
form and in his newspaper and has been called by his 
admirers "the American Pym." Under the sedition act 
his political opponents caused his arrest and succeeded in 
having him tried and imprisoned. He was then a member 
of congress from Vermont and his constituents re-elected 
him while he was in jail. Leaving Vermont he went to 
Kentucky, where he founded another newspaper and was 
again elected to congress. Finally he moved to Arkansas 
and there held other political office before his death in 1822. 

Colonel Lyon's paper-mill was in Fairhaven, a small part 
of his big business interests there. It was built some time 
between 1790 and 1795 and principally served his own 
printing establishment. His son James succeeded him in 
ownership and operation, but the mill passed into other 
hands in the first years of the next century. It was in 
operation until after 1880. 

New York state had no mill north of the Highlands until 
near the close of the century. The printers and stationers 
of Albany and Troy were dependent upon the mills in 
Hartford, Conn., and Burlington, Vt. From those sources 
the supply was small and transportation over rough roads 
and through forests was difficult. The first mill in this 
section was on the Poestenkill, a small creek that set in 
from the Hudson river in the outskirts of Troy. It was 
built in 1792 by Mahlon Taylor "near his dwelling-house'' 

91 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

on the west side of the creek and was supplied with water 
from a flume which also served a neighboring grist mill 
and saw mill. Soon after its erection the mill was sold, 
for £400, to Charles R. and George Webster, printers of 
Albany, and Ashbel Seymour and Perley Ensign, paper- 
makers of Hartford. It had a capacity of from five to ten 
reams daily. A few years later another mill was erected 
nearby on the Wynantskill. Both these mills were in 
operation well into the next century. 109 

Joshua and Thomas Gilpin had a paper-mill on the 
Brandy wine river, two miles above the city of Wilmington, 
Del., in 1787. De Warville, the French statesman, travel- 
ing in the United States in 1788, thus wrote of this mill: 

"This town is famous for its fine mills ; the most 
considerable of which is a paper mill belonging to Mr. 
Gilpin and Myers Fisher, that worthy orator and man 
of science whom I have often mentioned. Their proc- 
ess in making paper, especially in grinding the rags, 
is much more simple than ours. I have seen speci- 
mens of their paper, both for writing and printing, 
equal to the finest made in France." 110 

Thomas Gilpin and Miers — not Myers — Fisher were 
brothers-in-law, Gilpin having married Fisher's sister. The 
Gilpins and the Fishers were wealthy and influential Qua- 
kers, merchants of Philadelphia. Their non-resistance 
during the revolution brought them into much trouble. 
Several of them were compelled to remove to Virginia. 
Among these was Miers Fisher, who, however, returned 
to Philadelphia after the war had ended, became a success- 
ful and wealthy lawyer and was prominent in public affairs, 
in the city council and in the house of representatives of 
Pennsylvania. The Gilpin paper was identified by several 
water-marks. One that was commonly used was a post- 
horn and the signature, J. G. & Co., Brandywine. 

Another Pennsylvanian whose name was associated with 
these early American enterprises was Benjamin Franklin. 



108 Arthur James Weise: The City of Troy and Its Vicinity 
(1886), p. 229. 

110 J. P. Brissot de Warville: Travels in the United States, 
(1794), II., p, 362. 

92 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



First as a printer and a publisher and, later in life, as a 
scientist and all-around business man, a philosopher, a 
man of public affairs, a patriot and a far-seeing statesman, 
he was deeply interested in paper-making, the importance 
of which, as a fundamental factor in developing American 
industries generally and in conserving American free insti- 
tutions, he fully appreciated — no man of his day more 




Benjamin Franklin. 

He Wrote on Paper-Manufacturing and Was Practically Interested in 
Paper-Mills of Pennsylvania. 

clearly. He patronized and encouraged the new mills, 
particularly those in Pennsylvania, in every way that he 
could, as a private individual and as a public official. De 
Warville in his account of travels in the United States 
relates that Franklin told him that he had been instru- 
mental in starting eighteen mills. Also his intellectual 

93 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

versatility led him to write on this subject. In June, 1788, 
he read before the American Philosophical Society in Phil- 
adelphia a paper entitled Description of the Process to be 
Observed in Making Large Sheets of Paper in the Chinese 
Manner, with one Smooth Surface. 111 

Delaware county, Pennsylvania, was a paper-mill center 
in the latter years of the century. The Willcox mill in 
Concord township has already been described in detail and 
it was still in prosperous existence. Others were the Lenni 
mills of John Lungren on Chester creek, in 1798; the 
Aaron Matson mill on Chester creek, in 1790 and after; 
the William Trimble mill in Concord township before 
1799; the mill on Darby creek owned in 1778 by Morris 
Trueman and in 1799 by John Matthews. John Lungren 
also owned and operated, in 1785, a mill on Ridley creek 
which had been built by James Willcox in 1766. Members 
of the Levis family were noted paper-mill owners in this 
region. Samuel Levis was a maltster in Leicester, Eng- 
land, before he came to America in 1684. Settling in 
Delaware county on the banks of Darby creek, upper 
Darby, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the build- 
ing of mills of every description. His application to this 
business brought him wealth and made him a man of in- 
fluence and his descendants for several generations fol- 
lowed his example and profited thereby. Samuel Levis in 
1782 and, after him, William Levis, owned and operated a 
paper-mill in upper Darby township ; William Levis bought 
a mill on Ridley creek before 1795 ; before the revolution 
Samuel Levis had a mill on Darby creek; Isaac Levis had 
a mill on Ridley creek in 1790 and later, and in 1798 his 
son and son-in-law operated the mill under the alliterative 
partnership name of Levis & Lewis ; William Levis, in 
1795, acquired from John Lungren the Willcox mill on 
Ridley creek in Upper Providence township and his son 
John Levis was the manager of the property ; Thomas 
Levis, Sr., in Springfield township, owned a mill that, in 
1799, had passed into the hands of two of his sons, John 
Levis and Thomas Levis, Jr. A long and absorbingly in- 



Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, III., p. 8. 
94 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



teresting chapter in American paper-mill history of the 
eighteenth century could be written with Delaware county 
as the scene of action ; and the names of Willcox, Lungren, 
Levis, Martin and others would illumine it brilliantly on 
every page. 

West of the Allegheny mountains no paper-mill existed 
until near the close of this century. It was in 1795 that 
Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless, Quakers from 
the eastern part of Pennsylvania, were settled near Pitts- 
burg and conceived the idea of making paper there. Sharp- 
less was a blacksmith and general mechanic who had 
learned the trade in the Gilpin mill on the Brandywine and 
Jackson was a farmer, a mill owner, and engaged in other 
business pursuits. Their mill — the first in that part of the 
United States — was built upon the Redstone creek, Jeffer- 
son township, Fayette county, some four miles east of 
Brownsville. Many difficulties confronted them even be- 
fore they could start the mill running, chiefly of course 
the inevitable scarcity of rags. Advance announcement of 
their plans was made by the proprietors in a local news- 
paper advertisement, and in this was incorporated what 
had now become the familiar and imperative call for 
rags, as follows: 112 

"TO THE PUBLIC 
"Samuel Jackson & Co. : 

"Inform the inhabitants of the Western Country 
that they are making every exertion to forward the 
completion of their Paper-Mill, which they are erect- 
ing on Big Redstone, about four miles from Browns- 
ville, in Fayette county, a never-failing stream. That 
they have experienced Workmen engaged to carry on 
the work, and hope to be able before the expiration of 
the present year to furnish their Fellow-Citizens with 
the dififerent kinds of paper usually in demand, of 
their own manufacture, and of as good quality as any 
brought from below the mountains. They request 
their fellow-citizens generally to promote their under- 
taking by encouraging the saving and collecting of 
rags, and inform Merchants and Store-keepers in par- 
ticular that they will give them a generous price in 



1U The Western Telegraphe and Washington Advertiser, May 
24, 1796. 

95 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Cash for such clean Linen and Cotton rags as they 
may collect. 

"Redstone, May 19, 1796." 

At the outset writing-paper was made and was carried 
to Pittsburg in a wagon by one of the owners of the mill 
and sold to individual customers. Before a year had passed 
printing-paper was chiefly made and between twenty and 
twenty-five work people were employed. It appears that 
the first printing-paper was put upon the market in June, 
1797, according to notices in two local newspapers. 

"The paper which you now read was manufactured 
at Redstone, by Messrs. Jackson & Sharpless, and for- 
warded with a request to publish thereon a number 
of the Telegraphe, that the public might judge of 
their performance." 113 

"This paper is made in the Western country. It is 
with great pleasure that we present to the public the 
Pittsburgh Gazette, printed on paper made by Messrs. 
Jackson & Sharpless, on Redstone Creek, in Fayette 
County. Writing paper, all kinds and qualities, as 
well as printing-paper will be made at the mill. This 
is of great importance to the inhabitants of the coun- 
try, not only because it will be cheaper than that which 
is brought across the mountains, but it will keep a 
large sum of money in the country which is yearly 
sent out for the article." 114 

Eventually the mill was able to produce annually paper 
to the value of ten or twelve thousand dollars. 

A Baltimore historian records that, in 1778, several 
manufactures were established in or near that town, 
among them being "a paper mill by Mr. Goddard." 11S 
This Mr. Goddard was William Goddard, editor of The 
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser. He was a 
noted printer, editor and publisher, in Providence, R. I., 
in 1762 ; in New York with Holt on Parker's Gazette and 
Post Boy; after 1766 in Philadelphia, where he started 
the Pennsylvania Chronicle, and after 1773 in Baltimore. 



113 Western Telegraphe and Washington Advertiser, June 20, 1797. 

114 The Pittsburgh Gazette, June 24, 1797. F. Ellis. History of 
Fayette County, Pennsylvania (1882), pp. 620-623. 

115 Thomas W. Griffith: Annals of Baltimore (1824), p. 80. 



96 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



Plans for another North Carolina mill were projected 
in 1789, when, in November of that year, Gotlieb Shober 
and others petitioned the legislature relative to paper- 
making and were granted a loan of three hundred dollars, 
without interest, for a term of three years. 116 Additions 
were made, in this period, to the paper-mill group in Mil- 
ton, Mass. Most important was that by the Mill Creek 
and Neponset River Company, which was incorporated in 
1798 by Michael McCarney and others. McCarney was of 
a group of Irishmen long identified with paper-making in 
Milton, among them being John Sullivan and Patrick 
Connor. 117 

The first paper-mill west of the Susquehanna river was 
erected in Georgetown, Ky., in 1793, by Craig, Parker & 
Co. This appears from several newspaper announcements : 

"Any person understanding paper making or the 
construction of a paper mill, will please apply at this 
office." 

"A paper mill. — The subscribers inform the publick 
that they have undertaken to build a paper mill at 
Craig's Fulling Mill, Woodford County, Ky. They 
flatter themselves that they will be able to supply the 
district with paper this coming winter, if the publick 
will be so obliged to save their rags for the purpose, 
without which we need not inform them the mill will 
be useless. We therefore earnestly request them to 
save their rags. Craig & Logan." 

"Craig, Parker & Co.'s paper manufactory is actu- 
ally making paper. We make no doubt but that in 
the course of the spring we shall be able to furnish 
the State in all kinds of paper, providing we can get 
a sufficient supply of rags, nor have we any reason to 
fear from the success we have already had in collect- 
ing rags but we shall be plentifully supplied. We 
earnestly hope that the importance of the manufac- 
tory to the State at large is a sufficient argument to 
induce them to save their rags." 

"Wanted at the Georgetown paper mill four or five 
boys to learn the trade. Craig, Parker & Co." 



u9 Walter Clark: State Records of North Carolina (1903), 
XXL, p. 581. 

ur Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, VI., pp. 79- 
80, VII., p. 86. 

97 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"Writing and wrapping papers for sale at this office 
by the ream." 118 

The Kentucky Gazette was printed on paper made in 
this mill, which also supplied the presses of the Western 
Spy in Cincinnati, the Scioto Gazette in Scioto, Ohio, and 
other newspapers in that region. Several historians of 
early Kentucky days have referred to this mill as an im- 
portant assistance to the business life of the time. 

"In 1792 a paper mill, the first which had been at- 
tempted in Kentucky, was in progress and near com- 
pletion. For this establishment, which promises to be 
useful, the country was indebted to the exertions of 
Craig & Parker. It was near Georgetown and soon 
after rendered production." 119 

"The first paper mill was built at Georgetown by 
the Rev. Elijah Craig, a Baptist preacher, and his 
partners Parker & Co. The enterprise was begun in 
the summer of 1791 and the manufacture of paper 
successfully was not accomplished until March, 1793. 
The mill house was 40 by 60 feet in size, the basement 
stone, and the two and one-half stories above of 
wood. The mill dam was erected in 1789. Here 
was turned out the first sheet of paper made in the 
great West. The first mill was burned down in 
1837." 120 

Improvements either in paper-making machinery or 
paper-making processes were slow in coming. The first 
United States patent law for the protection of inventors 
was passed in 1790 and a second law in 1793. During the 
ten years from 1790 to 1800 the number of patents granted 
was two hundred and seventy-six, of which only four re- 
lated to the paper-making industry. These pioneers in a 
great company of distinguished successors from 1800 to 
1916 were: John Carnes, Jr., Delaware, improved paper 
moulds, April 11, 1793; John Biddis, Pennsylvania, im- 
provement in paper-making, March 31, 1794; Cyrus Aus- 
tin, New Jersey, improvement in paper-making, December 



118 Lexington Kentucky Gazette, January 1, 1791; April 7, 1792; 
March 29, 1793. 
"' Humphrey Marshall: History of Kentucky (1824), I., p. 391. 
"° Lewis Collins: History of Kentucky (1874), I., p. 516. 

98 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



14, 1798 ; Robert R. Livingston, New York, improvement 
in paper-making, October 28, 1799. John Biddis' patent 
was for making paper and pasteboard from sawdust. He 
built a mill for that purpose and around it laid out and 
developed the town of Milford, Penn. 121 









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w* r A* f 
















Hp« - ; . ■ i ■& 








Hft ' " ' fl 








HI-' M 








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I?UJ 


i^H r^fgf^w 


■•'.' 



Robert R. Livingston. 

Inventor of an Improved Process in Paper-Making, 1799. 

Paper-hangings or wallpaper came into the colonies as 
early as 1737, but in scant amount until well after the mid- 
dle of the century. It was not used by pasting on the wall, 
as in later generations, but was suspended against the wall 
or on wooden frames as tapestries. Its use was frowned 
upon by the church as a sinful display of luxury and pride 



121 His name is also given as Biddle, but in the records of the 
patent' office it is Biddis. 

99 



PAPER MANUFACTURING m the UNITED STATES 

and, as it was all imported from England and France and 
was costly, those two reasons operated to prevent, for a 
long time, its general adoption. Finally, native manufac- 
turers became interested and, in 1763 and again in 1766, 
samples of the domestic product were exhibited. In 1789, 
or soon after, John Carnes of Delaware engaged in the 
manufacture of paper-hangings on a large scale. He had 
been the United States consular representative at Lyons, 
France, and there had learned something about the busi- 
ness. Associating himself with Burrell Carnes and two 
French workmen by the name of Le Collay and Chardon 
he was established in Philadelphia. 

The breaking out of the revolution stopped the advance 
of the industry, but after the war had been brought to an 
end manufacture was taken up again and use rapidly in- 
creased. Much was still imported from England and 
France and in 1787 France, in order further to increase 
the demand removed the export duty on what was bought 
by the United States. About the same time mills for 
paper-hangings were running in Boston, Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey. In nine months they turned out ten thousand 
pieces. 

By 1794 the Boston mills were producing twenty-four 
thousand pieces annually, for the demand of that part of the 
country. Within the first decade of the next century the 
mills in and near Philadelphia were producing 140,000 
pieces annually, valued at $97,417, and at the same time 
mills of Providence, R. I., were making eight thousand 
pieces. These early hangings were ordinary in appearance 
but became quickly popular. They were made from the 
coarsest and cheapest rags and woolen stuff", in sheets 
thirty inches long, pasted together; the patterns were 
stamped upon them with wooden blocks by hand. 122 

In 1786 the Society of Sciences of Philadelphia offered 
a premium for the discovery or invention of a process for 
protecting paper from the attacks of insects and also a 
premium for the best method of making paper for the 



122 J. L. Bishop: A History of American Manufactures (1868), I., 
p. 209. A. S. Bolles : Industrial History of the United States 
(1879), p. 467. 

100 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



West Indies — particularly San Domingo — especially de- 
signed for resisting the attacks of insects peculiar to that 
region. Several plans were submitted with samples, all 
of them proposing to use a sizing in which should be 
mixed ingredients fatal to insect life, but none was consid- 
ered worthy of endorsement by the society. 123 

It has already been narrated how before and during the 
revolution state encouragement in various ways was given 
to those who would engage in paper-making. With the 
beginning of national existence this policy was continued, 
only now it was not merely for the purpose of stimulating 
and developing the industry but also for protecting it from 
foreign competition. An early effort in this direction was 
made in 1785 when the legislature of Massachusetts im- 
posed a duty on all foreign vellum and paper. But the 
people had not yet wholly overcome their repugnance to 
taxation and the measure did not receive popular approval ; 
accordingly it was repealed. 

As long as the states continued under the old confedera- 
tion there could be no encouragement in a broad general 
way to domestic industries. The confederation had no 
power to enact commercial legislation or to enforce treaties 
and the individual states were distraut by inharmonious 
and often conflicting laws. The new constitution of 1787 
and the government organized under it were regarded by 
the agricultural, commercial and manufacturing classes as 
giving assurance of the future where, before, doubt and 
uncertainty had prevailed. All departments of business 
were infused with a new spirit of hopefulness and enter- 
prise. Manufacturing, although still considered subordi- 
nate in importance to agriculture and commerce, showed 
signs of a development that promised to be expansive and 
healthful. American labor began steadily, though slowly 
at first, to change its form from a general system of man- 
ual operations, isolated and local, to the organized efforts 
of regular establishments with associated capital and cor- 
porate privileges, employing more or less of the new ma- 



123 J. L. Bishop: A History of American Manufactures (1868), 
I., p. 206. 

101 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

chinery which was then coming into use in Europe. The 
productive classes regarded the constitution of 1787 as 
conferring the power and right of protection to the infant 
manufactures of the country in order to encourage their 
increase and reasonably to insure their success. 

When the first congress assembled in March, 1789, one 
of the first petitions presented to that body was from seven 
hundred of the mechanics, tradesmen and others of the 
town of Baltimore lamenting the decline of manufactures 
and trades since the revolution and asking an early atten- 
tion to the encouragement of American manufactures by 
imposing on "all foreign articles which could be made in 
America, such duties as would give a decided preference to 
their labors." This petition was followed by memorials of 
similar tenor from tradesmen, manufacturers and mechan- 
ics of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston and 
elsewhere. In response to these expressions of public 
opinion and in accord with the general views of the 
founders of the republic the first revenue bill which be- 
came the basis of subsequent tariff acts was passed. 124 

In the debate on this subject in the national house of 
representatives, April 17, 1789, Representative Clymer of 
Pennsylvania urged the claims of the paper-makers of his 
state, saying that "this manufacture is certainly an impor- 
tant one, and having grown up under legislative encour- 
agement it will be wise to continue it." A duty of seven 
and one-half per cent ad valorem was laid on blank books, 
writing, printing and wrapping paper, paper-hangings and 
pasteboard, and, at the same time, provision was made for 
the admission of rags free of duty. 125 Such, however, was 
the hesitancy of our law-makers at that time in regard to 
matters of taxation and tariff that this enactment was de- 
creed for a temporary period only — from August 1, 1789, 
to August 31, 1790. Before its expiration in 1790 its term 
of life was extended and some additions were made to it, 
parchment and vellum being placed in the paper schedule. 



124 J. Leander Bishop : A History of American Manufactures, 
(1868), II., p. 15. 

^Joseph Gales : The Debates and Proceedings of the Congress 
of the United States, Washington, 1834, I., p. 174. 

102 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



In 1792 the duty on paper-hangings was placed at fifteen 
per cent and that on sheathing and cartridge paper at ten 
per cent. By enactment of June 7, 1794, five per cent, 
more was added to the duty on sheathing and cartridge. 
That was the extent of tariff legislation on paper in its 
various forms prior to 1800. 128 

Alexander Hamilton, first secretary of the treasury of 
the United States, in his famous report on manufactures, 
communicated to the house of representatives, December 
5, 1791, referred to paper as follows: 

"Manufactories of paper are among those which 
are arrived at the greatest maturity in the United 
States, and are most adequate to national supply. That 
of paper-hanging is a branch in which respectable 
progress has been made. Nothing material seems 
wanting to the further success of this valuable branch 
which is already protected by a competent duty on 
similar imported articles. In the enumeration of the 
several kinds made subject to that duty, sheathing and 
cartridge paper have been omitted. These being the 
most simple manufactures of the sort, and necessary 
to military supply, as well as ship building, recom- 
mend themselves equally with those of other descrip- 
tions to encouragement, and appear to be as fully 
within the compass of domestic exertions." 127 



128 Tariff Acts Passed by the Congress of the United States from 
1789 to 1909, House Document, 671, 61 st Congress, 2d Session 
(1909), pp. 14, 17, 35 and 41. 

127 Gales and Seaton : Annals of the Congress of the United 
States 1791-1793 (1849), p. 1030. Henry Cabot Lodge: The 
Works of Alexander Hamilton (1885), III., p. 409. 



103 



CHAPTER SIX 

INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Mills Increased in Number in the First Decades — 
Statistics from the Census of 1810 and Isaiah 
Thomas' Estimate — Business Depression After 
the War of 1812 — Tariff Protection for Paper — 
— Rags Still Continued to Be Scarce — Some 
Prices That Prevailed in 1815 and 182] 

IN business there is no sharp line of demarkation be- 
tween one year and another, one decade and another, 
one century and another. Industry moves along, up or 
down, as the case may be, without regard to chronology 
and affected by influences and conditions quite other than 
time. Manufacturing, in all lines, in the United States, 
advanced rather slowly into the nineteenth century. It 
felt the stimulus of the new national life and the en- 
couragement of tariff protection but did not spring forward 
with bounding leaps. 

Paper manufacturing was not more active than other 
occupations. In scope, in methods and in general character, 
it continued about as it had been going on in the preceding 
decade or more, and the first quarter of the century had 
nearly passed before any decided change or very consider- 
able development in it was exhibited. Hamilton's state- 
ment, in 1791, that "manufactories of paper are among 
those which are arrived at the greatest maturity in the 
United States," may be accepted only with a great deal of 
reserve as it was plainly a broad generalization rather than 
a frank presentation of certifiable fact. 

When the century opened there were probably a few 

104 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

more than one hundred paper-mills in the country. Most 
of these, as their predecessors for a generation or more had 
been, were small affairs, feeble in every respect, in capital 
invested, in equipment, in methods used, in persons em- 
ployed and in amount of annual product. Some of them 
were establishments of size and industrial importance, 
measured by the standards of that time, but still infantile in 
comparison with the majestic mills of to-day. Gradually 
the number increased, until, by 1810 or thereabout, probably 
more than two hundred mills were in operation. These 
figures are obtained from the third federal census report 
and from results secured, at about the same time, by a pri- 
vate investigator, supplemented by information from local 
histories and other sources. 

A resolution of the national house of representatives, 
June 7, 1809, called upon the secretary of the treasury, 
Albert Gallatin, to report on the subject of the manufac- 
tures of the country. The report which ensued, although 
not submitted until nearly a year later, was generally in- 
complete and defective. The difficulties which, it had been 
found, hindered the securing even of this scant informa- 
tion constituted the prime reasons for endeavoring to 
gather more comprehensive and accurate statistics in con- 
nection with the impending taking of the third decennial 
census. Mr. Gallatin was able to report only very meagrely 
concerning the manufacturing of paper. He said: 

"Some foreign paper is still imported, but the 
greater part of the consumption is of American manu- 
facture; and it is believed that, if sufficient attention 
was everywhere paid to the preservation of rags, a 
quantity equal to the demand would be made in the 
United States. Paper mills are erected in every part 
of the Union. There are twenty-one in the states of 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Dela- 
ware, alone, and ten in only five counties of the states 
of New York and Maryland. Eleven of those mills 
employ a capital of two hundred thousand dollars, and 
180 workmen, and make annually one hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars' worth of paper. . . . But 
sufficient data have not been obtained to form an esti- 
mate of the annual aggregate value of the paper made 
. . . other than what may be inferred from the 

105 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

population. The manufactures of hanging paper and 
playing cards are also extensive." 128 

Immediately following the presentation of this report in 
1810 came the planning for the census. In this the first 
effort was made by the government to gather substantial 
statistics relating to all the manufacturing interests of the 
country, information that was felt to be needful in the con- 
sideration of tariff and other legislation affecting business 
development. The marshals and their assistants were di- 
rected to make an account of the several manufacturing 
establishments and manufactures in their respective dis- 
tricts with an enumeration of their annual product and 
other details. Commendable in intent as this plan was it 
was anything but successful in its results. Only a limited 
time was possible in which to do the work. Schedules and 
instructions were not drawn up and furnished to the census- 
takers so that uniform and complete information should be 
secured. Manufacturers were not yet accustomed to such 
investigations and their reluctance to supply facts con- 
cerning their business affairs could not be readily overcome. 
Therefore the returns as finally made were irregular, 
deficient and to some extent erroneous. "Accounts from the 
different states and territories, and even from divisions 
of the same state, varied with the divergent views of the 
agents, their intelligence, industry and other qualifications." 
The returns fell far short of presenting a full and reliable 
statement of the actual number and condition of the manu- 
factures of the country. 

From Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New 
York and Virginia the returns were more nearly complete, 
but even in those much was lacking to a thoroughly 
comprehensive and dependable exhibit. In other states and 
territories the deficiencies were even more marked. In 
general no attempt was made to take account of capital 
invested, raw material used, number of hands employed and 
cost of labor. At the most only the number of establish- 
ments, the machinery, and the quantity and value of prod- 



128 Report of Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin to the House of 
Representatives, April 17, 1810. In Gales and Seaton : American 
State Papers, Class III., Finance (1832), p. 428. 

106 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

uct were given ; and even in these particulars errors and 
omissions were abundant. In evidence of these deficiencies 
many examples have been cited. 

"Thus the number of printing offices — stated by Mr. 
[Isaiah] Thomas, a competent authority, at more than 
400 in 1810 — was returned by the marshals as 110. 
Bookbinders, calico printers and dyeing establishments 
were returned only for one state. No glass works 
were returned for Massachusetts, which had long 
made and exported glass of a superior quality to other 
states. Bark mills were given for only one state ; car-r 
riage makers for three ; blacksmiths' shops for five ; 
hatters for four; tin and copperware shops for two — 
and these the least considerable in that branch. The 
number of tallow candle factories in Massachusetts 
was not given, although that state was credited with 
nearly one-half the product in that branch, and the 
same was the case with morocco factories." 129 

Despite all these shortcomings, however, the returns were 
interesting as the first systematic official statement of Amer- 
ican manufactures and they contained a great deal of des- 
ultory information that was valuable. After futile attempts 
had been made to digest and arrange this mass of material 
into some comprehensible form, the secretary of the treas- 
ury, in obedience to a joint resolution of both houses of con- 
gress, submitted the papers for examination and review to 
Mr. Tench Coxe of Philadelphia, a recognized authority at 
that time, on statistics and economics. Mr. Coxe returned 
to congress in June, 1813, the results of his work, and in his 
analysis we have the first understandable account, meagre 
though it is, of the manufacturing pursuits of the country. 

Paper-making did not figure large in that census report. 
The marshals returned a summary of $127,694,602 as the 
value of all the manufactured products of the country and 
of that amount the sum of $1,939,285 was credited to manu- 
factures of paper, pasteboard, cards, etc. From a consid- 
eration of all the reported details and estimation of manu- 



1S *J. L. Bishop: A History of American Manufacturers (1868), 
II., p. 159. 

107 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

factures which were omitted or imperfectly returned Mr. 
Coxe amended the figures of the marshals by extending them 
to $172,762,676, slightly more than thirty-five per cent. 
On that basis of calculation the value of products under 
the paper-making schedule would rise to more than 
$2,600,000 which would probably be not an overestimate. 
Paper and its derivatives, then, constituted only about two 
and one-half per cent of the total manufactures of the 
country. The following statement accompanied the report : 

States, Territories Value of 

and Districts Mills Reams Product 

Maine 2 4,500 $16,000 

Massachusetts 23 95,129 290,951 

New Hampshire 6 42,450 

Vermont 11 23,350 70,050 

Rhode Island 3 14,625 53,297 

Connecticut 19 82,188 

New York 28 77,756 233,268 

New Jersey 14 10,380 49,750 

Pennsylvania 64 165,981 626,749 

Delaware 4 75,000 

Maryland 9 22,200 77,515 

Virginia 4 3,000 22,400 

Ohio 2 10,000 

Kentucky 6 6,200 18,600 

North Carolina.. ... . 3 2,400 6,000 

East Tennessee 2 — — 15,500 

South Carolina 1 

District of Columbia. 1 



202 425,521 1,689,718 

A few more than one half of these mills were in New 
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and more than sixty 
were in New England, while those remaining were scat- 
tered in nine smaller states and territories, among which 
Maryland was conspicuous with nine and Kentucky with 
six. In addition to the foregoing tabulation of products 
the mills of Massachusetts were credited with twenty-two 
thousand five hundred rolls of paper, Rhode Island with 

108 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

eighty-eight and three-quarter tons and Pennsylvania with 
three hundred and forty tons. 130 

At the same time that the United States marshals and 
their assistants were engaged in collecting these facts, Mr. 
Isaiah Thomas was carrying on a similar investigation and 
evidently with more conscientiousness and intelligence. 
He found that the total number of mills which he could 
trace was one hundred and ninety-five, and was certain that 
more existed. His statement of the result of his re- 
search was : 

"My endeavors to obtain an accurate account of the 
paper mills in the United States have not succeeded 
agreeably to my wishes, as I am not enabled to pro- 
cure a complete list of the mills, and the quantity of 
paper manufactured in all the states. I have not re- 
ceived any particulars that can be relied on from some 
of the states ; but I believe the following statement 
will come near the truth. From the information I 
have collected it appears that the mills for manufac- 
turing paper are in number about one hundred and 
eighty-five [sic], viz.: in New Hampshire, 7; Massa- 
chusetts, 40; Rhode Island, 4; Connecticut, 17; Ver- 
mont, 9; New York, 12; Delaware, 10; Maryland, 3; 
Virginia, 4 ; South Carolina, 1 ; Kentucky, 6 ; Ten- 
nessee, 4 ; Pennsylvania, about sixty ; in all other 
states and territories, say 18. Total 195, in the year 
1810. 

"At these mills it may be estimated that there are 
manufactured annually 50,000 reams of paper, which 
is consumed in the publication of 22,500,000 news- 
papers. This kind of paper is at various prices ac- 
cording to the quality and size, and will average three 
dollars per ream; at which this quantity will amount 
to 150,000 dollars. The weight of the paper will be 
about 500 tons. 

"The paper manufactured and used for book print- 
ing may be calculated at about 70,000 reams per an- 
num, a considerable part of which is used for spelling 
and other small school books. This paper is also of 
various qualities and prices, of which the average may 
be three dollars and a half per ream, and at that price 
it will amount to 245,000 dollars, and may weigh 
about 630 tons. 



188 Gales and Seaton : American State Papers, Class III., Fin- 
ance (1832), II., pp. 666 and 706. 

109 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"Of writing paper, supposing each mill should make 
600 reams per annum, it will amount to 110,000 reams, 
which at the average price of three dollars per ream 
will be equal in value to 333,000 dollars, and the 
weight of it will be about 650 tons. 

"Of wrapping paper the quantity made may be com- 
puted at least at 100,000 reams, which will amount to 
about 83,000 dollars. 

"Beside the preceding articles, of paper for hang- 
ings, for clothiers, for cards, bonnets, cartridge paper, 
paste-boards, etc., a sufficient quantity is made for 
home consumption. 

"Most of the mills in New England have two vats 
each. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware 
and Maryland have three or more. Those with two 
vats can make, of various descriptions of paper, from 
2,000 to 3,000 reams per annum. A mill with two vats 
requires a capital of about 10,000 dollars, and employs 
twelve or more persons, consisting of men, boys and 
girls. Collecting rags, making paper, etc., may be 
said to give employment to not less than 2,500 persons 
in the United States. 

"Some of the mills are known to make upwards of 
3,000 reams of writing paper per annum; a few do 
not make any; but there are not many that make less 
than 500 reams. The quantity of rags, old sails, ropes, 
junk, and other substances of which various kinds of 
paper and paste-boards are made, may be computed 
to amount to not less than three thousand five hundred 
tons yearly." 131 

During the second struggle with Great Britain, 1812- 
1816, paper-manufacturing, in common with other indus- 
tries, was very much hampered by the continued shortage 
of raw material and the difficulty of procuring moulds and 
engines from abroad. Rise in the wages paid to workmen 
and in the cost of all machinery and materials led to high 
prices and a contracted production that materially affected 
the users of paper who were also deprived of the impor- 
tations that they had heretofore been able to rely upon. 

War brought other troubles, aggravating though minor, 
to the printers. British ships infested American waters 



131 Isaiah Thomas: The History of Printing in America, I., 
p. 25. Vol. V. of Transactions and Collections of the American 
Antiquarian Society (1874). 

110 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

and interfered with domestic commerce. Even closed-in 
waters, like Long Island Sound, were not free from them 
and. ships sailing in and out of the port of New York were 
often in danger. One incident of the kind was recorded 
by one of the victims who, however, as will be seen from 
his announcement, endeavored to turn it to his advantage, 
as much as might be. On October 9, 1814, the packet 
Susan, commanded by Captain John Miles, sailing from 
New York to New Haven, Conn., was captured by a Brit- 
ish sloop of war off the harbor of Bridgeport. Part of her 
cargo was printing paper for the New Haven newspapers 
as appears from the following : 

"Our Patrons must pardon us for giving them a 
very inferior quality of paper this week. Fortune has 
frowned upon the printer, and placed in the hands of 
the enemy, by the capture of the Susan, our stock of 
paper for several months, worth between 200 and 300 
dollars. It will be obtained, however, by paying 
nearly its value over again. Our friends who are in 
arrears at this office, it is hoped, will not remember 
to forget the publisher at this time." 132 

On the whole, however, paper-making seems to have been 
less affected than other manufacturing by conditions aris- 
ing from the war. In many lines of business there had 
been a certain unhealthful inflation in consequence of in- 
creased domestic demand and naturally resultant high 
prices ; and much capital was put into new undertakings 
which despite all drawbacks were quite generally profitable. 

Paper-manufacturing does not appear to have taken 
much, if any part, in this expansion, and its development 
proceeded normally and if anything rather slowly. Never- 
theless it could not escape from the general business de- 
pression that followed the war, mostly brought about by 
the flooding of the market with foreign goods under a 
policy which was declared openly in the British parliament 
to be quite worth while "in order by the glut to stifle in the 
cradle the rising manufactures in the United States, which 
the war had forced into existence, contrary to the natural 
course of things." Thus declared Lord Brougham, his 



'New Haven Columbian Register, October 18, 1814. 
Ill 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

"contrary to the natural course of things" being merely, 
intentional or otherwise, a euphemistic expression of "con- 
trary to the interests of Great Britain." 

Much of the investigating, debating and legislating in 
the early congresses of the United States pertained to the 
establishing and upbuilding of American industries and 
their protection from imperious foreign competition. The 
experiences of the colonial and revolutionary periods had 
not been forgotten by the generations that had come since 
then, and like problems seemed to be still pressing. In 
February, 1816, the secretary of the treasury, A. J. Dallas, 
at request of Congress, transmitted to that body a review 
of the existing tariff of the United States and a proposition 
for changes in the tariff duties. In this communication he 
divided the manufactures of the country into three classes, 
in the first of which, "manufactures which are firmly and 
permanently established, and which wholly, or almost 
wholly, supply the demand for domestic use and consump- 
tion," he placed paper of every description and blank books. 
In a schedule of articles to be imported free of duty under 
his proposed general tariff he placed "rags, of any kind of 
cloth," and advised a duty of thirty-five per cent, on "paper 
of every description, paper hangings, blank books, paste- 
board, parchment, vellum and printed books." The duty 
then existing on paper was fifteen per cent., and the pro- 
posed duty represented an increase of 133^ per cent., a 
larger increase than that upon any other articles except 
clothing and woolens. 133 

During these years petitions continued constantly to 
come to Congress from all parts of the country urging 
prohibition of or increased duties on foreign manufactures, 
but these were not always immediately responded to in a 
manner effectively to meet the situation. The tariff acts 
of 1816 and 1818 were only measurably successful. Em- 
barrassments, still in consequence of the unchecked im- 
portation of foreign goods, and the inflated and depre- 
ciated paper currency, continued to press heavily upon the 



133 Gales and Seaton : American State Papers, Class HI. Fi- 
nance (1832), III, pp. 85-93. 

112 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

manufacturing interests and culminated, in 1819, in ex- 
treme business distress. 

A memorial of the Society of Paper-Makers of the 
States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, of which Mark 
Willcox was president and Thomas Gilpin secretary, was 
presented to Congress in 1820, asking for further tariff 
protection. In this memorial it was stated that in the dis- 
trict represented by the society there had been erected 
seventy paper-mills, which were in full operation until 
interfered with by importations after the war. These 
mills had ninety-five vats which' had cost to install about 
$500,000; they gave employment to nine hundred and fifty 
persons, half of them women and children, at a total 
amount of annual wages of $217,000; they consumed an- 
nually two thousand six hundred tons of rags, valued at 
$260,000, and produced about $800,000 worth of paper a 
year. Owing to the depression in business there were, in 
1820, only seventeen vats working, paying an annual 
amount of wages of $45,000, having a production of 
$136,000 annually, and thus leaving unemployed seven 
hundred and fifty-five persons, with a loss of two thou- 
sand one hundred and twenty-eight tons of rags con- 
sumed, valued, $212,800, with loss of $624,000 in manufac- 
tured product. The memorialists asked that a duty of 
twenty-five cents per pound be imposed on all writing, 
printing and copper-plate papers and fifteen cents per 
pound on all others. 131 

Rags continued to be quite as indispensable and quite 
as difficult to procure, throughout this period, as they had 
been in the preceding generations. For more than a hun- 
dred years the education of the public in the importance of 
saving rags in order to have paper had gone on unremit- 
tingly, but still all that was desired and necessary in that 
direction had not been accomplished. The system of calling 
for rags from house to house, that lasted until well toward 
the end of the century, had been started and resulted in 
much, but not enough, and it was to be long before impor- 



184 Gales and Seaton : American State Papers, Class III., Fi- 
nance, III., (1832), p. 462. 

113 



PAPER MANUFACTURING m the UNITED STATES 

tations from abroad relieved the situation to any material 
degree. The tin-peddler with his wagon laden with tin- 
ware, and all sorts of other things for household needs, 
which he would swap for old rags, was a familiar sight in 
the country towns ; in fact, he became for a time a national 
institution. Many are the "old boys" of the present gen- 
eration who remember how as "young boys" they earned 
their first pennies for candy or for the circus by hunting 
and saving rags anent the coming of these itinerant 
barterers. 

And yet withal the mill's were constrained to continue, 
without relaxing, the same strenuous campaign that had 
gone on for years, begging for the wherewithal to keep 
their mills going. A few illustrations will sufficiently 
serve as examples of methods that were still pursued 
throughout the country. When Zenas Crane and his part- 
ners were ready to build the first mill in western Massa- 
chusetts this was the way in which they made known their 
intentions and their needs : 

"AMERICANS! 

"Encourage Your Own Manufactories 

"And They Will Improve. 

"Ladies, Save Your RAGS ! 

"As the Subscribers have it in contemplation to 
erect a paper mill in Dalton the ensuing spring; and 
the business being very beneficial to the community 
at large, they flatter themselves that they shall meet 
with due encouragement. And that every woman 
who has the good of her country, and the interests 
of her own family, at heart, will patronize them by 
saving her rags, and sending them to their Manufac- 
tory, or to the nearest Store Keeper ; for which the 
Subscribers will give a generous price. 

"Henry Wiswell, 
"Zenas Crane, 
"John Willard. 
"Worcester, February 8, 1801." 135 

John Clark & Co., who leased and operated the first mill 
built in the Black river country, soon after 1807, gave 



The PittsHeld Sun, February 8, 1801. 
114 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

notice that they wanted rags, which would be received for 
them in the principal stores in upper Canada and the Black 
river country. To their advertisement they added a poetic 
plea to the ladies to help them. 

"Sweet ladies, pray be not offended, 

Nor mind the jest of sneering wags; 
No harm, believe us, is intended, 
When humbly we request your rags. 

"The scraps, which you reject, unfit 
To clothe the tenant of a hovel, 
May shine in sentiment and wit, 

And help to make a charming novel. 

"The cap exalted thoughts will raise, 
The ruffle in description flourish ; 
Whilst on the glowing work we gaze, 
The thought will love excite and nourish. 

"Each beau in study will engage, 

His fancy doubtless will be warmer, 
When writing on the milk-white page, 
Which once, perhaps, adorn'd his charmer. 

"Though foreigners may sneer and vapor, 
We no longer forc'd their books to buy, 
Our gentle Belles will furnish paper, 
Our sighing Beau will wit supply." 136 

Seth Hawley, a native of Connecticut, moved to Moreau, 
Saratoga county, N. Y., in 1793 and, in 1808, with his 
younger brother, Alpheus Hawley, erected there a paper 
mill. This was the fervid appeal that they put out in order 
to secure the necessary raw material for their enterprise : 

"Save Your Rags! 

"This exclamation is particularly addressed to the 
ladies, both young, old and middle aged, throughout 
the northern part of this state, by the subscribers, 
who have erected a paper mill in the town of Moreau, 
near Fort Edward. Nor is it thought that this appeal 
to our fair country women will prove unavailing when 
they reflect that without their assistance they cannot 
be supplied with the useful article of paper. If the 
necessary stock is denied the paper mills, young 



"* Franklin B. Hough : A History of Lewis County in the State 
of Nezv York (1860), p. 181. The Black River Gazette, Novem- 
ber 9, 1907. 

115 




Seth Hawley. 

A Pioneer Paper-Manufacturer of New York. 
Reproduced from an old engraving in Hawley's The Hawley Record. 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

maidens must languish in vain for tender epistles from 
their respective swains ; bachelors may be reduced to 
the necessity of a personal attendance upon the fair, 
when a written communication would be an excellent 
substitute. For clean cotton and linen rags of every 
color and description, matrons can be furnished with 
bibles, spectacles and snuff; mothers with grammars, 
spelling books and primers for their children ; and 
young misses may be supplied with bonnets, ribbons 
and ear rings for the decoration of their persons (by 
means of which they may obtain husbands) ; or by 
sending them to the mill they may receive cash." 137 

Early in the century David Buel of Troy, who was one 
of the leading men in business and public affairs in that 
section of the state, and for many years postmaster, owned 
and operated a mill on Wynantskill. This was swept 
away by a freshet in 1814, but a few years later, on another 
site, he erected a second mill, which continued to be used 
under various owners for more than fifty years. 138 Buel 
had given active encouragement to the gathering of rags 
for the first mill near Troy in 1792, and now he found 
himself obliged to make similar earnest pleas on behalf of 
his own enterprise. This was the way in which he called 
for the paper-maker's staple : 

"Please Save Your Rags. The press contributes 
more to the diffusion of knowledge and information 
than any other medium ; rags are the primary requisite 
in the manufacture of paper, and without paper the 
newspapers of our country, those cheap, useful and 
agreeable companions of the citizen and the farmer, 
which, in a political and moral view, are of the highest 
national importance, must decline and be extinguished. 
The paper mills of the State, could the poor and the 
opulent, the farmer and the mechanic, be persuaded 
into a laudable frugality of saving rags, would turn 
out ample supplies of American paper to answer all 
demands. The people of Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, with true American zeal, have introduced 
this exemplary saving into the economy of their 



137 Elias S. Hawley: The Hawley Record (1890), p. 479. Joel 
Munsell : Chronology of Paper-making (1876), p. 64. 

1M Arthur J. Weise: Troy's One Hundred Years (1891), p. 274. 
Arthur J. Weise: Troy and Vicinity (1886), p. 229. 

117 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

houses. The latter, by fair circulation, makes yearly 
a saving- of rags to the actual amount of $50,000. The 
ladies in several of the large towns display an elegant 
work bag as part of the furniture of their parlors, in 
which every rag that is used in the paper mill is care- 
fully preserved. Were this example imitated, this 
State would not be drained of its circulating cash for 
paper and other manufactures which American artists 
can furnish. The poor, by the mere saving of rags, 
may be enabled to procure paper and books for school 
and family use and more agreeable articles of dress 
or consumption. The rich who regard the interests 
of their country will direct their children or domestics 
to place a bag or box in some convenient place as a 
deposit for rags, that none be lost by being swept into 
the street or fire, the sales of which savings will re- 
ward the attention of the faithful servant and encour- 
age the prosperous habit of prudence and enter- 
prise.' 



"189 



In 1815 Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum of Pittsburg, Penn., 
were operating a paper-mill in connection with their print- 
ing and publishing business. In an announcement of this 
they put in the usual plea for rags : 

"C. S. & E. have in complete operation their Paper 
Mill on Little Beaver, from which they will receive a 
constant supply of the various kinds of writing paper, 
wrapping paper, bonnet and fuller's boards, etc." 

"Rags! Rags! 

"We again entreat our economical and industrious 
housewives to take care that not an atom of this val- 
uable article is lost. 

'To them you are indebted for your bible, the edu- 
cation of your children; and the fair maid, however 
nice, in handling those nasty things, will have the 
means of holding a correspondence with what she 
holds most dear on this earth — a sweetheart — see how 
important. 

"For good clean linen and cotton RAGS, four 

cents in cash and five in books, is given per 

pound at the Franklin Head Bookstore" 14 " 

Until the new century was well under way importations 



lw Joel Munsell: Chronology of Paper and Paper-making 
(1876), p. 57. 

119 Cramer's Pittsburg Almanac, 1815. 

118 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

of paper continued to be heavy despite all efforts to pre- 
vent it. Much of the writing paper of this period, as the 
correspondence that has been preserved gives evidence, 
bore the royal arms and other foreign watermarks. Letters 
of Harmar, St. Clair, Wilkinson, Wayne and others of the 
post-revolution period and later show this. Prior to 1820 
the United States senate used paper that was manufac- 
tured in Europe ; some of it had the water-mark, "Na- 
poleon, Empereur et Roi, 1813." This use of foreign paper 
continued despite the offer of the Gilpin mills to furnish 
equally good paper at twenty-five per cent, less cost. 
About, or soon after, 1820 Simeon and Asa Butler of Suf- 
field, Conn., supplied to the national senate the first 
American-made paper used by that legislative body. 

Prices for paper were then high, all things considered. 
One record of the prevailing prices has been preserved 
in a report presented to the national house of representa- 
tives, in January, 1821, by the committee on manufactures. 
The committee favored imposing higher tariff duties for 
the protection of manufactures, and included in their re- 
port a statement of the kinds of paper then made in the 
United States, with ream weights and wholesale prices. 

Pounds Value 

Kind of Paper. Per Ream. Per Ream. 

Quarto post 

Folio post 

Stout demy writing 

Stout medium writing 

Stout royal writing 

Stout super-royal writing 

Stout imperial writing 

Foolscap writing No. 1 

No. 2 



Demv 



Medium 



7 



No. 3 
No. 1 
No 
No. 3 
No. 4 
No. 5 
No. 1 



7 


$4.00 


16 


9.00 


22 


10.00 


28 


22.00 


34 


16.00 


40 


18.00 


45 


20.00 


15 


4.00 


13 


3.50 


12 


3.00 


16 


5.00 


16 


4.50 


16 


4.00 


16 


3.25 


16 


2.75 


18 


6.00 



119 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Medium writing No. 2 18 $5.00 

" No. 3 18 4.50 

" No. 4 18 3.75 

" No. 5 18 3.00 

Royal " No. 1 20 7.00 

" No. 2 20 6.00 

" No. 3 20 5.00 

" No. 4 20 4.00 

" No. 5 20 3.50 

Super-royal No. 4 22 4. 50 

Super-royal No. 5 22 4.00 

Imperial No. 4 25 4.75 

Imperial No. 5 25 4.25 

Fuller's press papers were generally sold at twenty cents 
per pound. Sheathing paper and paper used by sugar re- 
finers sold for about eight cents per pound. Common 
wrapping paper, sold by the ream, was graded in different 
sizes, as cap, pot, crown, demy, royal, super-royal, and so 
on, and sold at from six to eight cents per pound. Tissue 
paper, used mostly for protecting copper-plate engravings 
in books, was commonly made on medium-sized moulds, 
weighed about six pounds per ream and was worth about 
six dollars per ream, commanding its high price on ac- 
count of its being made in part out of new stuff. 
Super-royal printing was seldom finer than No. 4. ]41 

Standard sizes of moulds used in the manufacture of 
hand-made paper were: Foolscap, 14}ixl6j4 inches; 
littrice, 15^x16%; demy, 16x21; extra royal, 21^x25^; 
super royal, 20%x27y 2 ; imperial, 22^x30}-^ ; post, 17x 
21^2 ; medium, 18x23 ; royal, 21x24 ; manslaughter, 22x32 ; 
atlas, 26^x33. Bank paper was made foolscap. Papers 
were assorted into four grades, styled in the order of their 
perfection : whole, first retree, second retree, third retree or 
broken. Each ream consisted of eighteen quires of its par- 
ticular grade and two quires of broken sheets, one on the 
top and one on the bottom of the ream. Newspapers were 
often printed on paper of the second or third quality. 



141 Gales and Seaton : American State Papers, Class III., Fi- 
nance, III. (1832), p. 628. 

120 



INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

For some years after the erection of Joseph Markle's 
first mill at West Newton, Penn., Pittsburg was head- 
quarters for the sale of all kinds of paper. An advertise- 
ment in Cramer's Pittsburg Almanac, for 1815, published 
by Cramer, Spear and Eichbaum, printers, booksellers and 
publishers of that city, gives the prices that prevailed at 
that time in that part of the country. 

"C. S. & E. Having their PAPER MILL in com- 
plete operation, will be enabled to furnish at all times 
the various sizes and qualities of paper on the fol- 
lowing terms : 

Royal Writing $22 00 per ream. 

Medium do 1st quality 18 00 do 

Medium do 2nd quality .... 14 00 do 

Demi do 10 00 do 

Folio Post 9 00 do 

Quarto do 4 50 do 

Fancy do 5 00 do 

Foolscap No. 1 4 50 do 

do No. 1, retree 4 00 do 

do No. 2 4 00 do 

do No. 2, retree 3 50 do 

do No 3 3 50 do 

do No. 3, retree 3 25 do 

Medium Wrapping 2 75 do 

Crown do 2 25 do 

Foolscap do 1 75 do 

Bonnet Boards 9 50 per gross. 

Fullers do from 25 to 33^ per lb." 



121 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

The Famous Ames Manufacturers and Their Work — 
First Mills in Berkshire County, Mass. — Other 
Mills, Old and New, in Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut and Elsewhere — Scant Statistics From 
the Fourth Decennial Census, in 1820 — Old- 
Time Mill Equipment and Old-Time Papermakers 

ADVANCED fully into the second century of its 
existence American paper-manufacturing had 
finally established itself in a fixed position among the fore- 
most manual activities of the new nation. Compared with 
some other lines of business it was not yet predominantly 
important, in capital invested, in people employed, in raw 
material used or in annual output. Still, even though 
relatively small in those respects, no longer was it merely 
a local or neighborhood affair, as generally it had been in 
the past, save in the instance of those few mills that had 
achieved wider distinction by reason of success in grow- 
ing bigger, in broadening their scope of operations and 
in extending their markets. In the census-taking of 1810, 
it was one of the twenty-three industries specifically in- 
cluded and only ten stood ahead of it in the value of its 
manufactured product. It ranked below woollen, cotton 
and silk goods, machinery and carding-cloths, hats, 
manufactures of iron, manufactures of gold and silver, 
soap and oil products, manufactures of hides and skins, 
liquors, manufactures of wood, and cables and cordage. 
It was superior to soap and oil products, refined sugars, 
glass and earthenware, and tobacco. 

122 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

When, as down to the breaking out of the revolution, 
less than twenty mills in eight colonies — and those mostly 
indeed in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts — had covered 
the entire industry, the particular, detailed history of 
those several establishments, even though only few of 
them ever rose to commanding importance, was, in the 
largest sense, a comprehensive history of the whole. Now, 
however, the individual mill, save in exceptional instances, 
began to count for less than heretofore, for its conspicuous 
and influential identity was merged in the broader con- 
siderations of the entire institution. The industry had 
grown and expanded beyond the measure of any of its 
single representatives, was gradually becoming more and 
more of national consequence, was making a not insig- 
nificant part of the history of the country, was affecting 
and being affected by others, and was exercising a con- 
siderable and steadily increasing influence upon the life of 
the people. It became involved in the questions of the 
tariffs ; it was often a prime factor in establishing and 
assisting in the growth of new communities. 

It is in these later aspects that the history of the industry 
becomes more impressively interesting and more vitally 
important. From this point on the record is one of devel- 
opment in widely separated parts of the country, of the 
opening of new paper-manufacturing centers, of the intro- 
duction of machinery and of improvements in methods. 
This ripening growth covered the best part of the first 
half of the century, before the industry began to show 
that it was soundly on the way to being fully rounded out 
and substantially established in its modern conditions. 

Notwithstanding the census of 1810 and the personal 
investigations made by Isaiah Thomas, about the same 
time, indicated that the number of mills in the country 
was approximately one hundred and eighty to two hun- 
dred, the actual number existing in this period continued 
to be more or less an unknown quantity. Several things 
contributed to this paucity of accurate information. Most 
of all, in the majority of cases the mills were small affairs 
and existed only temporarily; they sprang up almost in a 
night, as it were, were burned in a few months, or a few 

123 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

years and were not rebuilt. In their way they were as 
hard to find and as hard to keep track of as the proverbial 
elusive flea. Some of them, however, stand out conspicu- 
ously, as they were eminent in size, in magnitude of opera- 
tions and in financial solidity or were founders of sec- 
tional manufacturing centers ; and as such they command 
special attention. Perhaps two score of them, all told, were 























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Jm 


















-K'. 










., , rifwB 






J 


9^v ., 


. 




4 


, ■ . " - :* 
















"'^^saBH 










.. 


¥y 












p 







David Ames. 

A Famous Pioneer Paper-Manufacturer of Massachusetts. 

of such consequence in the first quarter of the century, 
mainly in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and 
Delaware. 

For a period of nearly forty years the Ameses of Spring- 
field, Mass., were great paper-manufactures. David 

124 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

Ames, a soldier of the revolution, was sent to Springfield, 
in 1794, in the second presidential term of Washington, to 
estabish the national armory in that place, being commis- 
sioned a colonel. After eight years in that position he 
resigned and went into the business of paper-manufactur- 
ing, purchasing a mill which had been built in Springfield 
about 1800. This mill was the regulation small affair, 
having two vats and two rag engines, each of one hundred 
and twenty pounds capacity. The machinery was mostly 
of wood, and power was derived from an undershot wheel. 
It was not until 1820 that iron gearing was put in and by 
that time its capacity had nearly doubled. 

Sons of the original proprietor, David, Jr., and John, 
were admitted to partnership and the firm entered upon 
a career of prosperity. John Ames was the inventor of 
the family and a cylinder machine and other devices and 
processes originated by him contributed much to their 
success. From the outset the firm, which became known 
as D. & J. Ames, prospered wonderfully, making money 
rapidly and growing until it was one of the largest and 
most powerful in the country. They purchased mills that 
had been established near Springfield and also built a 
twelve-engine mill in South Hadley Falls. At one time 
they operated five mills, were running sixteen engines, 
were using three tons of rags daily and producing eighty 
reams of the largest size printing paper and one hundred 
and eighty reams of foolscap or letter. 

One of the best properties acquired by the Ameses was 
on the Chicopee river in that northern part of Springfield 
which later became the town of Chicopee. There, in 1806, 
a mill was built by William Bowman, Benjamin Cox and 
Lemuel Cox, who continued to manufacture paper for fif- 
teen years or upward. Chauncey Brewer and Joshua 
Frost bought the property and maintained the mill in 
operation for five or six years more, when they sold it to 
David Ames. Machinery was introduced by the Ameses, 
who were succeeded, in 1853, by John Valentine. Thus 
the mill was operated for nearly or more than half a 
century. 

The product of the Ames mills was book, news and 

125 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

writing and the members of the firm were credited with 
being particularly shrewd and sometimes not over-scrupu- 
lous in manufacturing and business methods. It has been 
said that all kinds and grades of paper made by them were 
produced from the same stock and by the same process. 
Their book and news sold for nine cents a pound, and at 
times it was cut up, ruled and sold as writing for eighteen 
cents a pound. When rags became high in price they 
bought cardboard shavings in New York at two and one- 
half cents a pound, worked them with rags and sold the 
paper made from this stock at twenty-five cents a pound. 
About this time some manufacturers in England devised 
a method of loading their pulp with sulphate of lime or 
gypsum to an extent of twelve per cent in order to give 
weight to their paper. This practice soon became known 
in Europe and in the United States, and the Ameses have 
been credited with adopting it in some of their mills, 
according to the testimony of a later-day manufacturer 
who, as a boy, was one of their apprentices. 

"One way they had of adding weight was from an 
old gypsum mine near their Water Shops mill in 
Springfield. This they mined and crushed with a 
crude grinder, and after screening a little, wheeled 
it to the side of the beaters and shovelled in all they 
thought the stuff would carry. One of the effects 
of this kind of pulp was to make the paper quite 
gritty, almost like very fine sand paper. The old 
cylinder machine with one large fire dryer was run 
about twelve hours per day and during this time the 
gypsum would accumulate on the dryer so thick that 
very little heat could get through it. A good strong 
scraper was then employed to clean it and the machine 
was ready to go ahead again." li2 

During the panic of 1837 the Ameses met with disaster, 
and, after dragging along in a crippled financial condition 
for a few years, sold their property. Their original mill 
in Springfield was purchased by Greenleaf & Taylor, and 
finally was destroyed by fire. David Ames, Sr., died Aug- 
ust 6, 1847, aged eighty-seven years. His son, David 



"'George W. Thompson: in The Paper Trade Journal, October 
16, 1897. 

126 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

Ames, died March 12, 1883, aged ninety-two. John Ames 
died January 25, 1890, aged ninety. 

Now were the beginnings of that paper-manufacturing 
which ultimately made the western part of the state of 
Massachusetts one of the centers of the industry in the 
United States and internationally celebrated. The start- 
ing of a little mill in Berkshire county, in 1801, was ap- 
parently no more important than hundreds of similar 
undertakings that had preceded or were to come after it 
in all parts of the country. Ordinarily it would have been 
only an almost insignificant local event to be passed by 
indifferently in any historical review of the subject. 

But the man and the place contributed to achieve for 
it more than simple neighborhood fame. It was the pre- 
cursor of big things in its following; it blazed the way 
for a century of surpassing paper-making development; 
it laid the foundation for establishments that have had no 
superiors and few rivals in their respective lines. As a 
pioneer and as a powerful influence in leading and de- 
veloping, under favorable conditions, a notable part of the 
industry to which it belonged, the little Dalton mill rightly 
commands something more than mere casual notice and 
takes a conspicuous place as an historical landmark. 

Twenty-three years before, in 1779, the people of the 
town of Pittsfield were impressed with the importance of 
having paper made in their part of the state. In town 
meeting they voted instructions to their representatives to 
the great and general court in Boston, to use their "best 
endeavors, that any petition which may be preferred from 
this town, or from any individual of it respecting the 
erecting a Paper-mill in this town, be attended to and 
espoused by you in the General Court." Nothing seems 
to have been done about this at the time, however, and it 
was after 1800 that the desired paper-mill for the extreme 
western part of the state was a reality. 

Zenas Crane, the pioneer paper-manufacturer of the 
Berkshires, came from the eastern part of Massachusetts, 
the home of his parents being in Canton, Norfolk county, 
in the neighborhood of the first Massachusetts paper-mill 
of 1728 in Milton. His elder brother, Stephen Crane, Jr., 

127 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

learned the trade in that mill and then established himself 
a few miles away in Newton Lower Falls. In the Newton 
mill the younger boy acquired the rudiments of the busi- 
ness. From Newton he moved on to Worcester, where 
he worked for some time in the mill of General Caleb Bur- 




Founder of Paper-Manufacturing in Berkshire County, Mass. 



bank. There he had wider experience and gained a more 
thorough knowledge of the details of his chosen vocation. 
Having reached this stage of preparedness, he deter- 
mined to have a mill of his own and to this end, in 1799, 
when he was twenty-two years of age, he journeyed to the 

128 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

western part of the state, and there, in the town of Dalton, 
selected a site for the first paper-mill in Massachusetts 
west of the Connecticut river. Not until two years later 
was the mill built, as appears from an advertisement for 
rags, printed by Crane and his two partners in the Pitts- 
field Sun, February 8, 1801. 148 

John Willard dropped out of the firm before the enter- 
prise was fully started, Daniel Gilbert taking his place. In 
December, 1801, a mill had been erected on a lot of land 
a little more than fourteen acres in extent, with a water 
privilege and for this they paid one hundred and ninety-four 
dollars. The building was a one-vat mill, with a drying 
loft in the upper story, and it had a capacity for day's 
work of twenty posts — one hundred and twenty-five sheets 
of paper. Various sizes of book and news papers were 
made, but the writing paper was in foolscap and folio 
only. Two newspapers of the county used most of the 
news that the mill produced, and the overplus, both of 
writing and printing, went to the nearby market in Al- 
bany. For several years the annual production was about 
twenty tons. Mr. Crane was the superintendent and gen- 
eral manager and had a weekly salary of nine dollars. 

In 1807 Mr. Crane retired, selling his interest in the 
mill to his partners, but three years later he came back 
into the business and bought part of another mill — the 
second in Dalton, built in 1809. This became famous as 
the Old Red Mill and in 1822 Mr. Crane became sole 
proprietor of the business, maintaining his active control 
of it until 1842, three years before his death. Further 
account of the Old Red Mill and its successors belongs in 
the history of the Cranes of three generations and their 
notable activities in the field of paper-manufacturing. 

After 1807 Wiswall & Carson owned the first Dalton 
mill. In subsequent years it was managed by David Car- 
son, his sons, Thomas G., William W., and David J., all 
of them expert paper-makers and, still later, down to con- 
temporaneous times, principally by other members of the 
Carson family. 



See page 114, ante. 

129 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




David Carson. 

A Pioneer Paper-Manufacturer in Western Massachusetts. 
Reproduced from an old wood engraving. 

After the start had been made by Zenas Crane and his 
associates paper-making in the Berkshires went steadily 
on, though slowly at first. News of the natural advantages 
of the section spread and especially did the excellence of 
waterpower that could be secured, the salubrity of the 
mountain air and the purity of the water peculiarly adapted 
to paper-making, command the attention of paper-makers 
who presently began to journey thither. Samuel Church 
came from East Hartford, Conn., to the town of Lee in 
1806 and built there a two-vat mill and two years later 
Luman Church built another mill in Lee, the third in the 
county. No further additions were made to the industry 
in this little town until 1822 when Charles M. Owen and 

130 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

Thomas Hurlbut arrived and began to manufacture in one 
of the Church mills in a small way, employing four men 
and six women and producing ten reams of letter paper a 
day. Their energy and natural ability led to the rapid ex- 
pansion of their business and they were soon in the fore- 
front ; but that is a story of a later period. 

J3etween 1810 and 1825 there were in existence, at 
different times, in Massachusetts, from twenty to thirty 
mills, possibly a few more. Aside from those already re- 
ferred to in Springfield, Dalton and Lee they were prin- 
cipally located in Milton, Newton, Waltham and Worces- 




Daniel Vose. 

One-Time Owner of the Mill in Milton, Mass. 

131 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

ter. Most of them were small and scantily equipped and — 
established only to meet local needs — perished when the 
conditions altered that gave them birth. Several, how- 
ever, were more enduring and have lasted into the 
twentieth century with little if any material change except 
as has resulted from the introduction of modern machin- 
ery and the expansion of business. 

After the passing of a hundred years the first mill in 
Milton still remained active, although it had been long 
out-distanced by some of its more pretentious later rivals, 
in size and importance of operations. Daniel Vose, the 
son-in-law of Jeremiah Smith, had acquired the property 
from his father-in-law about the time of the revolution 
and held it nearly until his death. Vose, who was born 
in Milton in 1741 and died there in 1807, was, during the 
greater part of his mature life, the leading business man 
of his native place and active in civil and military affairs. 
He was in every way a worthy successor to the first paper- 
mill men of Massachusetts. 

John Sullivan and Joseph Dodge operated the mill for 
a few years but it was later leased to Isaac Sanderson of 
Watertown, who in 1810 acquired ownership of it. San- 
derson was an experienced paper-maker and a clever in- 
ventor. In 1803, according to a local historian, he manu- 
factured for the Boston custom house the first folio post 
and quarto letter paper ever made in New England. In 
1817 he built a new mill near the old one and put in a 
wrought iron tub-wheel, the first iron water wheel used in 
that section. He retained control of the mill until 1834. 1 * 4 

By succession to Jeremiah Smith Boies and Hugh Mc- 
Lean, the business in two of the Milton mills passed into 
the hands of Amasa Fuller, George Bird, Henry Cox, 
Richardson Fuller, Benjamin F. Crehore, Jarvis Fenno, 
Ebenezer Steadman, Joseph Randall and John Savels, 
through a period of nearly thirty years. The McLean 
property was purchased by Edmund Tileston and Mark 
Hollingsworth, in 1809, and that of Boies by the same 
partners, in 1828. Tileston and Hollingsworth thus came 



** Albert K. Teele : The History of Milton, Mass. (1887), p. 371. 

132 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

into possession of both these historic mills which they pro- 
ceeded to enlarge and remodel, thus laying the foundation 
of the business that was to endure as a family possession 
unbroken for another hundred years. 146 

In the eastern part of Massachusetts, Middlesex county 
had developed manufacturing on a large scale along widely 
divergent lines. Paper-manufacturing was established in 
several towns during the last quarter of the eighteenth 
century and in the first quarter of the next century. There 
were mills in Waltham, Ashland, Newton, Watertown, 
Shirley, Framingham and Pepperell. In Newton only did 
the industry grow to notable proportions, but the opera- 
tions in other places were not devoid of interest. 

A little mill in Waltham was the third in that town, 
built by Nathan and Amos Warren in 1802. Located on 
Stony brook, a stream that branches off the Charles river, 
it became the property of John Gibbs about 1820. In 
1835 John and Stephen Roberts purchased the mill, 
Stephen Roberts having had practical experience in sev- 
eral Massachusetts mills. In a few years John Roberts 
became the sole proprietor and in his hands and those of 
his descendants the mill has remained until the present 
time. For more than half a century it was operated by 
John Roberts and his son William Roberts and now — in 
1916 — is owned and operated by The John Roberts & Son 
Company, Incorporated. The mill, which years ago super- 
seded the original wooden structure that was burned in 
1844, is a picturesque stone building, old-fashioned in 
appearance but modernly equipped, in a country suburb 
of the city that has been known there for several genera- 
tions as Roberts' Station. 

The record of this mill, as it was conducted in the 
hands of its long-time proprietor, is another illustration of 
the success that in early days came to many a small estab- 
lishment skillfully operated on a specialty. John Robejts 
was one of the first American manufacturers to introduce 
the Fourdrinier machine and he added improvements in 
machinery and new methods of his own devising. Among 



141 Albert K. Teele: The History of Milton, Mass. (1887), pp. 
372-375. 

133 



PA PER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

his inventions was a machine for tarring sheathing-paper 
used for building purposes and the Roberts mill soon be- 
came widely known for its high grade of standard tarred 
paper. At one time the mill was almost exclusively occu- 
pied with this product. Beginning with coarse wrapping 
paper Roberts was shortly one of the first manufacturers 




John Roberts. 

Proprietor of one of the first mills in Waltham, Mass. 

in the country to make fine grade hardware papers. In 
1916 the mill was making asbestos paper, a logical ad- 
vancement from the original tarred roofing paper. 146 

14, D. H. Hurd: History of Middlesex County, Mass. (1890), 
III., p. 757. 

134 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

Jonas Parker and Thomas Parker, natives of Shirley, 
learned paper-making in one of the Waltham mills, and 
returning home built the first mill in that town, on the 
Catacoonamaug river. It was an humble effort with one 
vat and one engine. Later came a larger establishment 
built by Edgarton & Co., the senior partner of this firm 
having had an interest in the first mill. Special distinction 
attached to this mill through the skill of its superintendent, 
Henry P. Howe, who conceived the idea of fire-drying as 
a substitute for the old-fashioned, slow air-drying process. 
His fire-dryer machine was patented and put into opera- 
tion with eminently satisfactory results. Howe gave up 
paper-making and engaged in the manufacture of paper- 
making machinery. The fire-dryer, which had promise 
of great results, was finally superseded by the steam- 
drying process. The Edgarton mill, under different opera- 
tors, continued until 1837 when it was destroyed by fire. 
Another mill erected on the site was operated for some 
ten years, to about the middle of the century, when it was 
burned and the manufacture of woollen goods was sub- 
stituted for that of paper. 147 

When John Ware, from Sherborn, established himself 
at the lower falls in Newton, in 1789, he purchased four- 
teen acres of land including a dam, water courses, mills, 
a forge, a dwelling-house and a barn. Only a small part 
of his investment was the paper-mill which he built the 
following year, but this was the beginning of what 
made Newton Lower Falls a great paper-manufacturing 
place. During the next forty years many changes were 
made in the ownership of this and other properties de- 
pendent upon the water-power of the Charles river at this 
point. Between the years of 1812 and 1832 upwards of 
thirty sales and transfers were made. An adjustment of 
the differences existing between the various owners, 
regarding water-rights, was made in 1816 and it ap- 
peared that then there were five paper-mills, the owners of 
which were Simon Eliot, Solomon Curtis, William Hurd, 
Moses Grant, John Ware, and Charles Bemis, Eliot & 



MT Seth Chandler: in History of Middlesex County, Massachu- 
setts (1880), II., p. 299. 

135 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Curtis and Hurd & Bemis being two partnership concerns. 
It was nearly twenty years subsequent to this date when 
paper-manufacturing in this village fully entered upon the 
career that made its history such a large part of the 




Seth Bemis. 

A Later Proprietor of an Early Massachusetts Mill. 

industry in contemporaneous times in the hands particu- 
larly of the Crehores, Curtises and Rices. 148 

Seth Bemis, who was born in 1775 and died in 1851, was 
the youngest son of David Bemis. He succeeded his father 



148 D. H. Hurd : History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts 
(1890), III., p. 102. 

136 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

and his brothers in the manufacturing enterprises of the 
family on the banks of the Charles river in Watertown and 
Newton, owning the paper-mill at Bemis Station after 
1821. But his greater business success was in the manu- 
facturing of cotton and woollen goods and the preparation 
of dye-stuffs. 

Despite many discouragements the mill in Andover 
owned by Samuel Phillips and Thomas Houghton man- 
aged to exist in fairly prosperous condition until into this 
century. It stood for twenty years, being burned in 1811. 
Rebuilt in the following year, it was producing, in 1829, 
paper to the value of $10,000 annually and was giving 
employment to sixteen to twenty persons. Sons of 
Phillips and Houghton succeeded their fathers in the 
business, but after 1820 the mill passed into possession of 
others and finally became the property of Amos Blanchard, 
Daniel Poor and Abel Blanchard. Ultimately it was 
transformed into a woollen mill and paper-manufacturing 
in this town ended. 149 

Changes occurred in the ownership and operation of 
the first mills that had been started in central Massachu- 
setts. Abijah Burbank, who built the mill in Sutton be- 
fore the revolution, was in time succeeded by his son, Gen- 
eral Caleb Burbank, who associated with him his brother, 
Elijah Burbank. Under these brothers the property was 
greatly improved and its capacity enlarged. With the ad- 
vent of machinery, cylinders were put in and rag cutters, 
tub-wheels and new engines so that between 1828 and 

1835 it was quite an up-to-date establishment. General 
Burbank was a notable figure in his generation, a pub- 
lisher, a man of diversified business interests, influential 
and wealthy. But trouble came in the financial panic of 

1836 and with many others the Burbanks went under. 
The mill passed into other hands but was operated until 
nearly the opening of the civil war. 

The Thomas mill, which had become another Burbank 
property, was, after about 1811, owned solely by Elijah 



14 °Abiel Abbott: History of Andover, Massachusetts (1829), 
p. 195. . S. F. Bailey : Historical Sketches of Andover, Massachu- 
setts (1880), p. 585. 

137 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Burbank who made wrapping paper in it. He ran the mill 
until 1834 when the Quinsigamond Paper Company pur- 
chased it and, putting in new machinery, turned it to its 
initial purpose of producing printing paper, making about 
three hundred reams per week. 

The mills of Providence, R. I., endured well into this 
century. Those owned by Christopher Olney became the 




Major-General Caleb Burbank. 
An Early Paper-Mill Owner in Central Massachusetts. 

138 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

property of Wheaton & Eddy after the death of the origi- 
nal proprietor and finally they were owned by Richard 
Waterman. In a short time, however, they were dis- 
continued. 

Another historic eighteenth century mill that existed 
in one form or another for nearly a hundred years was 
that of Colonel Matthew Lyon in Fairhaven, Vt. After 
1800 it passed out of the hands of James Lyon, son of 
Colonel Lyon, and was owned by Josiah Norton. Burned 
in 1806, it was rebuilt and lasted until 1831, when it was 
again burned and again rebuilt. It endured until well 
toward the end of the century, but at the last in a very 
small way. 160 

The third mill in Maine followed those that had pre- 
ceded it in Falmouth by more than eighty years. It was 
in 1811 or 1812 that Robert H. Gardiner and John Savels 
started this in the town of Gardiner, on the Cobbassee 
river. Gardiner owned the mill site and Savels, who was 
the practical man, having learned his trade in one of the 
mills of Milton, Mass., managed the business. The out- 
put was writing paper. In 1820 Gardiner sold his interest 
in the property to his partner. Savels died in 1824 and 
under various ownerships and managements the mill con- 
tinued to be operated until after the middle of the century. 
Other Maine mills started in this period were: that of 
George Cox & Co. — Cox being from the Milton mill — 
built, in 1823, on Seven Mile brook in Vassalborough, and 
burned in 1843 ; that of Harris & Cox and Rand & Stock- 
bridge in North Yarmouth from 1816 to 1836, and that of 
Joseph F. Day in Union from 1816 to 1843. 

General David Humphreys, of Seymour, Conn., was one 
of the most energetic Americans of post-revolutionary 
times in encouraging in a practical manner the manufactur- 
ing industries of the country. He was a Yale graduate, a 
general in the revolution, the first United States minister 
to Portugal, in 1791, and minister plenipotentiary to Spain 
from 1798; he was also a poet as well as a soldier and 



"•H. P. Smith and W. S. Rann: History of Rutland County, 
Vermont (1886), p. 604. 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

diplomat. When he returned home from Spain in 1802 
he brought a herd of choice merino sheep and engaged 
actively in raising wool and in woollen manufacturing in 
his native state. His woollen mills were the beginning of 
the village of Humphreysville to which he gave his name. 
To his other enterprises he added a paper-mill in 1805 and, 




General David Humphrey, 
Soldier, Diplomat, Poet and Manufacturer. 

starting it in operation in a very modest way, produced 
from it four or five reams per day for several years. Sub- 
sequently the mill passed through the hands of several 
owners, and news, tissue and other papers were made in it. 
In 1850 it was torn down and a successor to it, erected on 
another site a short distance away, was burned in 1885 and 
not rebuilt. 

140 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

In the southern part of Connecticut, where Christopher 
Leffingwell built the first mill in the colony in 1766, not 
much more interest was manifested in this industry until 
well into the next century. Between 1790 and 1800 An- 
drew Huntington put up a mill on the Yantic river in 
Norwich, near or on the site of the old Leffingwell mill, 
and some years later Amos H. Hubbard owned and op- 
erated a mill in the same town, achieving the distinction of 
installing there, in 1830, the first Fourdrinier machine in 
that section of the state. First alone, then for twenty years 




The Humphreysville Paper-Mill. 

A Wood Engraving on Wrappers for the Paper Made in the Mill. 
Reproduced by permission from Campbell, Sharpe & Bassett's Seymour, Past 
and Present. 



in association with his brother Russell Hubbard, he con- 
tinued in the business until 1857, part of the time operat- 
ing two mills. 

It has been estimated that by 1820 the annual average 
production of the paper-mills of the United States was 
about $3,000,000, the cost of materials and labor in the 
manufacturing about $2,000,000, the number of persons 
employed five thousand, of whom one thousand seven 
hundred were males over sixteen years of age, the others 

141 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

women and children. 181 Undoubtedly these figures were 
largely guesswork, for then there was no possible way to 
obtain accurate information in regard to the industry. 
The failure of the manufacturing statistical part of the 
census of 1810 has been pointed out and other investiga- 
tions afforded no surer basis for conclusions. 

A second attempt was made in the taking of the fourth 
census, that of 1820, to gather more complete industrial sta- 
tistics than before, but the effort was again dolefully un- 
successful. The schedules were calculated to enumerate the 
number of establishments in the several counties of the 
states ; the nature and names of the articles manufactured ; 
the market value of the annual product; the kind, quan- 
tity and cost of raw materials annually used; the number 
of persons employed ; the total quantity and kind of ma- 
chinery installed and the quantity in operation ; the amount 
of capital invested; the amount of annual wages; the 
amount of contingent expenses, and general information 
regarding the establishments, conditions of business, and 
so on. In the final summing up, however, many mills were 
not reported, others declined to supply complete informa- 
tion, others refused to furnish any information whatsoever, 
the enumerators often failed to fill the blanks and the 
actual number of mills is nowhere given. A reading of the 
tabulation from the facts and figures collected by the 
enumerators, can at the best give only an approximate 
idea of the condition of any industry that may be exam- 
ined, or, as for that matter, of the manufacturing of the 
country as a whole. 

In respect to paper-manufacturing quite as markedly as 
in the case of other industries the report was inaccurate 
and inconclusive but nevertheless it is not wholly devoid 
of interest and value, when allowance has been made for 
its many shortcomings. It is not necessary to analyze the 
report in detail, but an examination of the tabulated re- 
turns for two of the states will sufficiently illustrate how 
inefficient and unreliable were the returns everywhere. 



m Joel Munsell: Chronology of Paper and Paper-Making 
<1876), p. 73. 

A 142 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

In Massachusetts, for Middlesex county, the amount of 
the annual product is given at $55,392, the machinery used, 
nine engines, eight vats, moulds, etc., and people em- 
ployed, one hundred and seven, but the number of mills is 
not stated, although it is known that probably a dozen or 
more were then in operation there. In Worcester county 
the annual product is given as $23,160, with four vats, 
three presses and three engines, and the people employed, 
thirty-seven, but the number of mills is not designated. 
Norfolk county is credited with an annual product of 
$25,000 "in part," and fifty-eight persons employed in two 
mills with two vats, two water wheels and five engines; 
a note refers to operations in three establishments and 
no statements from some others. In Hampden county it 
is said that six vats and other machines are in operation, 
employing sixty-nine people, but the number of mills is not 
given. For Hampshire county it is stated that thirty-five 
persons are employed in mills equipped with "vats and en- 
gines" and annually producing to the value of "$5,000 in 
one of these establishments ; the others not stated" ; and 
how many others does not appear. In Berkshire county 
three mills are reported in part, in spite of the fact that 
paper-making was already assuming considerable propor- 
tions in that county. 

The statement for Rhode Island is quite as non-illum- 
inating. In the tabulation one paper mill is entered as pro- 
ducing annually twenty reams of writing and .twelve of 
wrapping paper per week, and without other information. 
A foot note adds: 

"There are, besides what has been stated 
two paper-staining manufactories, the business of one 
of which is dull, from the markets being overstocked 
with French papers, and the other, from the same 
cause, is not in operation. . . . There are like- 
wise ... a paper and an oil mill. ... To 
which may be added a manufactory of paper . . . 
three manufactories of hats, and two of paper: all of 
which are stated as not in operation, except the paper 
manufactories, with respect to which, however, no 
particular information could be obtained." 

As the final classification and digest was made and 

143 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

printed under the direction of congress 152 the mills in the 
several states were set down as follows : Maine, one ; New 
Hampshire, six; Massachusetts, eleven; Rhode Island, 
six; Connecticut, seven; Vermont, nine; New York, 




Proprietor of the First Mill in Andover, Mass. 
Reproduced from a steel engraving in the New England Historical and 

Genealogical Register. 

twenty-one ; New Jersey, four ; Pennsylvania, twenty-four ; 
Maryland, five; District of Columbia, one; North Caro- 
lina, one; East Tennessee, two; Kentucky, one; Ohio, 



"'Gales and Seaton: Digest of Accounts of^ Manufacturing 
Establishments in the United States and Their Manufactures 
(1823). 

144 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

four ; total, one hundred and three. This accounts for only 
about one-half the mills that were in existence in 1810 
and certainly for not more than the same proportion of 
those that were undoubtedly being operated in 1820. The 
number of employees reported were two thousand and 
seventy; in Maine, twenty- four; New Hampshire, forty- 
eight; Massachusetts, one hundred and thirty-eight; Con- 
necticut, two hundred and five ; Vermont, one hundred and 
forty-one; New York, three hundred and seventy-three; 
New Jersey, one hundred and fourteen ; Pennsylvania, six 
hundred and fifty-nine ; Maryland, one hundred and thirty- 
two ; District of Columbia, twenty ; North Carolina, eight ; 
East Tennessee, sixteen; Kentucky, sixty-four; Ohio, one 
hundred and twenty-eight. This was manifestly not more 
than one-half the actual number; and the total amount of 
annual product, given as $957,902, and the amount of capi- 
tal reported as invested, $1,672,839, were both manifestly 
absurd underestimates. The Munsell calculation was 
probably much nearer the truth than the faulty census. 
No mills were reported in Virginia, Georgia, South Caro- 
lina, West Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Minne- 
sota and Michigan. 

Until after the first quarter of this century had nearly 
passed machinery as the word is understood in modern 
times was unknown. Water-wheels and beating engines 
were part of the equipment of every mill, but that was the 
end of labor-saving devices; all else was the primitive 
hand-work such as had prevailed alone through genera- 
tions of paper-making. Some mills still remained in the 
one-vat class, but most of them had at least two vats, while 
not a few could boast of three or even four vats. 

An average two, three or four-vat mill represented an 
investment of from $3,000 to $8,000, the lesser figure more 
generally than the larger. It was the rare exception when 
a mill could be considered to be worth $10,000. Reports 
of the burning of mills from time to time mostly put the 
values at $3,000 to $6,000, but a mill on the Bronx river, 
in the suburbs of New York city, owned by David Lydig, 
was insured for $32,000 when it was destroyed by fire in 
1822. This was considered a costly establishment, being 

145 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

well-equipped and carrying a large quantity of paper 
stock. The mill of the Gilpin brothers on the Brandy- 
wine river and several of those of the Ames family in and 
about Springfield, Mass., were also valued at high fig- 
ures, the Gilpin at from $350,000 to $500,000 and the en- 
tire Ames plant at fully as great an amount if not more. 

To man a one-vat wrapping paper-mill required four 
men and a boy; twenty posts was a day's work, requiring 
about nine hours' labor for two men and a boy at the vat ; 
one hundred and twenty-six felts or one hundred and 
twenty-five sheets constituted a post, so that two thousand 
five hundred sheets were turned out daily. A good two- 
vat mill could be depended upon to produce two thousand 
to three thousand reams of all kinds of paper annually, 
with twelve or more workers — men, women, boys and 
girls. In the collecting of rags and other raw material 
and in the making of the paper, two thousand five hundred 
persons found employment. Rags, junk, old sails, rope 
and other raw material were used to the amount of three 
thousand five hundred tons or more annually. A four-vat 
mill could turn out every day about four hundred pounds 
of hand-made paper which commanded a price of from 
forty to fifty cents per pound. 

Most of the small mills were at first run by the owners 
with help employed from the neighborhood. Gradually, 
as the industry expanded and the demands upon the mills 
for paper increased, a class of professional paper-makers 
sprang up and the mill proprietors came more and more 
into dependence upon them. They were a wandering lot 
of vagrants very much like the old-time tramp printers, 
and in fact many of them were veritable tramps, travelling 
about the country from mill to mill as they might wish to 
have employment. 

It was a great accomplishment to be a good vat-man, 
one who could hold the mold with its fibre and water level 
and thus make a perfect sheet of paper, of uniform thick- 
ness. The men began work in the mills early in the morn- 
ing, stopping for breakfast and particularly taking a rest 
at grog-time, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. A 
day's work of twenty posts was generally finished 

146 



A STEADILY GROWING INDUSTRY 

early in the afternoon and then resort was had to *the 
village tavern for the rest of the day. These professional 
paper-makers could be distinguished from other work- 
men by their big red hands, the result of dipping their 
hands continually into the warm water and pulp, and by 
their stooping, round shoulders caused by constantly bend- 
ing over the vat. 




The Eckstein Mill, Manayunk, Philadelphia. 

Reproduced from an old wood engraving. 



147 



CHAPTER EIGHT 
IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

Beginning in Central and Northern New York — 
Mills That Endured Substantially Unchanged 
for a Hundred Years — The Famous Mill of the 
Gilpin Brothers in Delaware — New Mills in 
Western Pennsylvania — Planting the Industry 
in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee 

PAPER-MANUFACTURING went on apace in New 
York, although in that State there were very few mills 
that had attained large size or that were making very much 
impression. The industry was still in the hands of single 
individuals or small firms, not yet having become big 
enough to warrant its advancement into the higher field of 
incorporated business, although the trend toward incorpo- 
rating had generally set in. According to a report made 
to the United States government in 1823 by the secretary 
of state of the commonwealth, two hundred and six 
incorporated companies were there then engaged in manu- 
facturing in New York, of which number two only were 
producing paper. At that time there were undoubtedly 
close on to forty mills in the state. 

The pioneer mill in western New York was built in 
Dansville, Livingston county, by Nathaniel Rochester. 
Dansville was then just emerging from the frontier stage 
of settlement, and Rochester, a North Carolina man, a 
colonel in the revolution and a friend of Washington, 
came there in 1810, purchased land and mill property and 
erected the paper-mill. The establishment was evidently 
of small account, for Colonel Rochester sold his entire 

148 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

interests in 1814, comprising seven hundred acres of land, 
a grist-mill, a saw-mill and the paper-mill for $24,000. It 
was, however, the beginning. 154 

Other mills were early erected in Dansville, and among 




Nathaniel Rochester. 

The First Paper-Mill Owner in Western New York. 
Reproduced from an old engraving in O'Reilly's Sketches of Rochester. 

them was one that became historically celebrated by its 
continuance for nearly one hundred years practically un- 
changed in its pristine, primitive character. This was the 



A. O. Bunnell: Dansville, 1709-1902, pp. 34 and 78. 
149 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Eagle, built in 1824 by Andrew Porter, at the entrance to 
Poag's Hole valley. In the fading years of its century of 
existence the Eagle was a weather-beaten wreck of an 
old wooden building more picturesque than business-like. 
From the same brook that flowed by it in 1824 came the 




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water that operated it after 1900, and, in the modern days 
of gas and electricity, such meagre light as it needed was 
furnished by old-fashioned oil lamps. No better picture 
of this antiquated mill could be drawn than the descrip- 
tion made by one who visited it when it had nearly reached 
its nine score years of existence. 

150 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 



"The machine on which the paper is made is said 
to have been built by a local wheelwright, a slender 
wooden affair of barely twenty feet in length and 
thirty-six inches in width. The entire plant is 
operated by water-power, its huge, old wooden water- 
wheel creaking noisily under its ceaseless burden. The 



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dam, from which the water is drawn, is one of those 
old-fashioned affairs which, owing to the scarcity of 
the supply, exposes shamelessly its structural features 
to the public gaze. A wooden flume, perched above 
the ground upon scantling supports, carries the water 
to the mill, a hundred yards distant, leaking copiously 
all the way. There are two beaters, each of a capacity 

151 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of about two hundred and fifty pounds, located in the 
loft, and the pulp runs into a vat below, from which it 
is pumped up to the machine. 

"The machine is in every way singularly deficient 
in labor-saving devices. The pulp is carried on a 
blanket instead of a Fourdrinier wire, which permits 
the water to percolate through. There are but four 
small heated cylinders, instead of the huge batteries of 
dryers seen on even the smallest of modern machines. 
There are neither suction boxes, calendering rolls nor 
cutting disks, and the water, as it is pressed from the 
pulp, is permitted to drip about the machine with heed- 
less prodigality. 

"The reel on which the paper is taken, off is a rough, 
wooden spindle affair, regulated in its action by iron 
weights on the end of a rope. A stop-gauge guillotine 
cutter takes it from the roll, and the operator, at his 
leisure, cuts it to size, sheet by sheet. If it is required 
to cut the paper to a smaller size, it is folded and torn 
apart over a scythe-blade attached to the wall. The 
mill is said to have a maximum capacity of two thous- 
and pounds for twenty-four hours, but, as it is 
operated throughout by one man, the output is prob- 
ably considerably less than half a ton a day." 155 

The mill was operated by several paper-makers during 
the first thirty years of its existence and then, in 1856, 
became the property of F. D. Knowlton, who managed it, 
alone and with his son, until the time of his death, before 
1900. The son, also F. D. Knowlton, followed his father 
as sole proprietor of the mill which still remained a one- 
man establishment, the second Knowlton, as its Pooh-Bah 
manager, being his own superintendent, engineer, machine 
tender, cutter, shipper and business manager. His product, 
which was mostly manilla wrapping, went principally to 
local storekeepers in Dansville and neighboring villages. 
This long-enduring mill was burned July 18, 1913, and 
was not rebuilt. 

Gurdon Caswell, a man from Connecticut, in which 
state he was born in 1783, emigrated to Oneida county, 
N. Y., in 1804, and settled in Westmoreland. He was a 
tailor by trade, but, marrying a daughter of Nathaniel 



155 E. T. Hathaway: Primitive Paper-making in Nezv York State. 
In The 'inland Printer (1909), XIII., p. 712. 



152 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

Loomis, who owned a paper-mill situated on Oriskany 
creek, a few miles from Utica, he also married into the 
paper-making industry. Four years later he was attracted 
to the Black river country, in the general movement of 
population which was then setting in in that direction, and, 
going to Watertown, built there a paper-mill, the first in 
that region. George W. Knowlton, of the family of paper- 
manufacturers of that name, wrote a considerable account 
of this mill. He said : 

"The building was a two-story frame structure 
thirty-five by fifty feet, but a considerable part of the 
second floor was used for a wool-carding machine. 
The machinery consisted of a small rag engine or 
Hollander, carrying about one hundred and fifty 
pounds of rags ; two or three potash kettles set in a 
brick arch, for boiling the rags and preparing the 
sizing ; one vat for making the paper, sheet by sheet ; 
and a rude standing press to squeeze the water out of 
the pack, as the pile of alternate felts and wet sheets 
was called. After pressing, the sheets were taken 
from the pack and hung on poles to dry, and, if in- 
tended for writing purposes, were afterwards dipped 
in sizing, a few sheets at a time, and dried again. 
There was no steam used in any part of this process ; 
no chlorine for bleaching; no calendering, the sub- 
stitute for the latter being pressing between boards." 

Caswell called his mill the Pioneer. Caswell's family 
remained in Oneida county until 1814, when he bought a 
farm and moved them to Watertown. In 1819 he built 
his second mill, which was soon sold to his brother, Henry 
Caswell, and brother-in-law, Erastus Loomis, and was 
operated by them and others until it was burned in 1833. 
In 1823 Caswell, in company with Ralph Clapp and 
William K. Asherd, built a third mill on Sewall's island, 
occupying part of the premises owned, three-quarters of a 
century later, by the Bagley & Sewall Company. This 
mill was torn down about 1830. Caswell removed to 
Clayton, Jefferson county, in 1832, and died there in 1862, 
aged seventy-eight years. 

In 1824 George W. Knowlton and Clark Rice, then liv- 
ing in Brattleboro, Vt, bought the first two mills built 
by Caswell, for $7,000. For the next thirty years Knowl- 

153 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

ton & Rice were, with unimportant exceptions, the only 
paper-manufacturers in Jefferson county. In 1833 they 
abandoned both the old mills and built on another site a 
new mill, which they equipped with two rag engines and 
a thirty-six-inch cylinder machine. The career of this 
establishment has been continuous to contemporaneous 
times. It was conducted successfully until 1848, when the 
building was burned, being replaced by a brick structure, 
with improved machinery and a capacity of from six 



George W. Knowlton. 

Pioneer Paper-Manufacturer in Watertown, N. Y. 

hundred to seven hundred pounds of paper per day, which 
remained in continuous service until it was rebuilt, en- 
larged and modernized in 1869 by Knowlton Brothers. 168 
Paper-making began in the Niagara Falls region in 



168 J. A. Haddock : History of Jefferson County, New York, 
(1895), p. 203. S. W. Durant and H. B. Pierce: History of Jef- 
ferson County, New York, (1878), p. 150. The Paper Trade 
Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 45. 



154 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

1823, when Jesse Symonds, a Connecticut man, experi- 
enced in the paper-trade world, arrived and began the 
erection of a mill. The water for power was taken from 
the river, the right having been purchased from Judge 
Augustus Porter and General Peter B. Porter. Mr. Sym- 
onds died before the mill was completed, but his wife 
continued the work and leased the mill to Henry W. 
Clark, of Rochester, who made print, letter and wrap- 
ping paper, and found his customers in the surrounding 
towns and country, his men driving from place to place 
buying rags and selling paper. 

When Clark's lease of the mill expired he entered into 
partnership with Albert H. Porter, the second son of Judge 
Porter, and together they purchased a mill site on Bath 
Island, with water privileges. For a number of years they 
operated the mill successfully by the old hand methods, but 
eventually a Fourdrinier machine was introduced, set up 
and run by Charles H. Symonds, the son of the pioneer 
mill builder. The site on Bath Island was chosen in order 
to obtain clear water for the linen, ledger, news and writ- 
ing paper, while wrapping paper was made during the 
periods of muddy water. In 1840 Clark sold his interest to 
his partner, Porter, who, at this time, was making paper 
for the old Buffalo Express and the New York Tribune. 
Porter, in turn, sold to the Bradley brothers ; after a few 
years L. C. Woodruff, of Buffalo, became the owner, and 
he also rebuilt the mill when, in the course of time, it was 
destroyed by fire. 

Webster, Ensign & Seymour continued to operate the 
mill near Troy that they had bought before the beginning 
of the century. The mill was worked largely in the 
interests of Webster, who owned the Albany Gazette, the 
first newspaper started in that city. In the regulation 
advertisement for rags the Gazette stated that the mill was 
making five to ten reams of paper every day, Sundays 
excepted, a very considerable part of which was used by 
the newspaper. It was urged that if the neighborhood 
could supply the rags needed this would mean a saving of 
at least £5,000 annually to the city of Albany. Offers were 
made of three pence a pound for clean white rags, two 

155 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

pence a pound for white-blue, brown and check and pro- 
portionate prices for others. 157 

General Walter Martin came into the Black river coun- 
try in 1800 and settled in that part of the town of Turin 
which afterwards was Martinsburgh, obviously named for 
its founder and proprietor. In 1807 he built there a paper- 
mill which was put in operation by John Clark & Co. The 
mill had a pulp engine and was intermittently worked for 
twenty-five years. In its early existence it produced writ- 
ing paper, but later its product was wrapping and wall- 
paper. 

In 1802 Ezra Sampson, George Chittenden and Harry 
Croswell started a newspaper, The Balance and Columbian 
Repository, in Hudson, and to supply their press Chitten- 
den purchased a one-vat paper-mill that had just been 
transformed by Elisha Pitkin from a grist-mill situated at 
Stuyvesant Falls. This was the first paper-mill in Colum- 
bia county. A few years later Chittenden built another 
mill, the second in the county, on the same stream, Kinder- 
hook creek, in Stockport, near Hudson. He operated that 
mill from 1810 until his death in 1845, his sons ultimately 
being associated with him in the business and continuing 
it after he had died. 158 

The smaller mills in New York State at this time varied 
in value from $10,000 to $40,000 or more. The Onder- 
donk mill, which was built in Hempstead, L. I., in 1768, 
the first in the colony, was sold in 1801 to Daniel Hoagland 
and Abraham Coles for $12,500. The Beach mill in 
Saugerties, where the first Fourdrinier machine in the 
United States was set up in 1827, was worth about $30,000. 
Other mills in this class, besides those already mentioned 
and many that must be passed by, were the Benjamin, at 
Catskill; the Wood & Redington, near Schoharie; the 
Simonds, Case & Co., at Farmington, and the Peck, at 
Rochester. 

The Gilpin brothers, who, in the latter part of the pre- 



m A. J. Weise: The City of Troy and Its Vicinity, (1886), p. 229. 

""Columbia County at the End of the Century, (1900), pp. 641 
and 655. F. Ellis : History of Columbia County, New York, 
(1878), p. 137. 

156 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

ceding century, had come into the front ranks of American 
paper manufacturers, maintained their position until long 
after 1800. Their paper became known all over the coun- 
try. The invention of the cylinder machine by Thomas 
Gilpin, and other improvements that they were able to 
make, gave them additional prestige. But their pros- 
perity did not endure. 

Not only were they unfortunate in losing the advantages 
that they expected to derive from their revolving cylinder 
process, but worse disasters befell them. In the great 
flood of February, 1822, when the Brandywine rose twenty 
feet above its banks, their dam was carried away, their 
races destroyed, some of their machinery injured and 
several buildings damaged. In April, 1825, a fire destroyed 
several buildings of the plant and much valuable ma- 
chinery. A climax came in 1838 when another flood 
damaged the property again and more seriously than 
before. Thereupon the owners, after fifty years of busi- 
ness, decided to discontinue. The estate was sold and the 
buildings were refitted for the manufacture of cotton 
goods. 159 

A contemporaneous writer gave a description of this 
mill and its surroundings when it was in its prime. 

"Citizens and strangers often resorted to this 
estate for a pleasant walk and to enjoy its beauteous 
scenery, as well as to see the novelty and skill of 
mechanism, visit the wonder-working machine that 
could turn out an endless sheet of paper. Paper- 
making is too well known to need a description. Yet, 
as things here were on the most approved plan, and 
order and neatness presided, we will venture to sketch 
one apartment in the old mill — a large salle on the 
lower floor, where more than thirty women were 
seated on high stools at a long table placed before 
the windows, each one having a knife to pick the 
motes from every sheet ; and they were dressed be- 
coming their occupation, with a clean apron as smooth 
as if an iron had just been rubbed over it. Not a 
cobweb marred these white walls, nor was dust al- 
lowed to soil the floors. 



'J. Thomas Scharf : History of Delaware (1888), II., p. 653. 

157 



PAPER MANUFACT URING in the UNITED STATES 

"Just above this, a large and modern stone building 
was occupied in the same way. Many departments 
of the business were carried on in each of these 
houses. The stone house below was used for assort- 




^ .S '* 



« th .C 



PQ 






I? 






ing and cutting rags, and another stone structure for 
extracting colors. In this, immense kettles were fixed 
in furnaces built of stone that seemed immovable. 
"Flat boats often conveyed paper on the water from 

158 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

one mill to another; but it was generally taken in 
wagons to the Wilmington wharves. Large quanti- 
ties of bank note paper were made here. We have 
seen whole pieces of new silk handkerchiefs cut to mix 
with the rags, to designate its manufacture." 160 

Several attempts were made to start paper-manufactur- 
ing in Pittsburg and vicinity, but the enterprise did not 
long endure, for the rolling-mills, iron foundries and other 
sooty establishments put white paper quite out of the 
question. Local historical authorities have contributed 
information, interesting — brief though it is — concerning 
these early efforts. 

"We have two extensive paper mills, one on the 
Big Redstone, and the other near the mouth of 
Little Beaver creek, which manufacture good paper 
of different kinds to the value of about 25 or $30,000 
worth annually. But they do not supply as much as 
the market stands in need of; much of this article is 
yet hauled over the mountains. (There are six paper 
mills, we are informed, in the state of Kentucky, one 
of which goes part of the year by the force of 
steam) — (BIF 3 We sincerely admonish our good 
housewives and their little daughters to save all clean 
linen and cotton RAGS, for without these no paper 
can be made, and without paper, books cannot be 
printed."" 1 

"In 1813 the making of paper west of the moun- 
tains had made rapid progress from 1795, the year 
in which Jackson & Sharpless got their paper-mill 
on the Redstone in operation, and the first in the 
country. At that time it was doubted whether rags 
could be got in sufficient quantities to keep the mill 
going. The saving of rags has kept pace with the 
erection of mills, for notwithstanding the consump- 
tion of seven, all are well supplied, and there ap- 
pears to be a prospect of getting plenty for two 
others now erecting. This increase in domestic 
economy in so short a period is perhaps unexam- 
pled. In 1795 there was about ten or twelve thou- 
sand dollars' worth of paper made annually, until 
1808, when [John] Coulter, [John] Beaver and 
[Jacob] Bowman erected a mill on Little Beaver; 



""Elizabeth Montgomery: Reminiscences of Wilmington, p. 40. 
m Cramer's Pittsburgh Magazine (1810). 

159 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

this also made paper to an equal amount with the 
first. At this time, [1812,] paper to the amount of 
about $80,000 annually, is manufactured in the 
western part of Pennsylvania and in the state of Ohio, 
besides what is made in Kentucky, which is also 
considerable. The paper mills erected lately are 
as follows: — Messrs. D. & J. Rogers, on the 
Youghiogheny, three miles above Connellsville ; 
Messrs. Markle & Drum, on the Sewickly, West- 
moreland, Pa." 162 

The Rogers mill, built in 1810, was owned by Daniel 
and Joseph Rogers and Zadoc Walker, and was the earliest 
manufacturing establishment in the township of Connells- 
ville, Franklin county. The original owners were suc- 
ceeded by D. S. Knox, M. Lore and John Scott, who con- 
tinued the manufacture of paper until 1836, when the 
business was discontinued. The paper from this mill was 
considered to be of superior quality, and a large business 
was built up by the Rogers brothers and their successors. 
Paper was shipped down the Youghiogheny river on flat 
boats to various points, even as far south as New Orleans. 
Years ago only an old stone house and a mass of ruins 
remained to indicate the location of a once prosperous 
manufactory and the village that surrounded it. 

In 1816 another mill was started in Pittsburg with a 
sixteen horse-power engine on the Oliver Evans principle, 
claimed to have been the first steam paper-mill in the 
United States. Forty helpers were employed, and annually 
ten thousand bushels of coal were consumed, sixty tons of 
rags made into pulp, and paper to the value of $30,000 
produced. 163 This mill was in existence a year later, in- 
cluded in a list of the factories in the city, published by 
the city council. Also it, or its successor, appears in Ly- 
ford's Western Address Directory in 1836, but after that 
it is not of record. 

By 1825 the number of mills in western Pennsylvania 
had grown to be nine — four of them owned in Pittsburg. 
Six, run by water power, contained two vats each and in 



*J. Trainor King: Pittsburgh, Past and Present (1868), p. 71. 
3 J. L. Bishop: History of American Manufactures, II., p. 231. 

160 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

one were three vats. Three others were worked by steam, 
one having three vats and a twenty horse-power engine, 
and the others four and six vats, respectively, with engines 
of thirty horse-power. In all the mills rags to the value 
of $68,000 were annually consumed, and the annual prod- 
uct was valued at $150,000. 164 

In the closing years of the eighteenth century the 
western country as far as Kentucky depended almost en- 
tirely upon paper made in a lone mill in Chambersburg, 
which was built soon after 1780 by Dr. John Calhoun, a 
son-in-law of Colonel Benjamin Chambers, who founded 
the city that bears his name. Until it was removed, in 
1832, this mill had a large product for its day, and supplied 
many newspapers in that part of the country west of the 
Susquehanna river. For many years, in its early existence, 
the Pittsburg Gazette was printed on paper made in this 
mill, the weekly supply being transported from mill to 
newspaper on pack-horses over rough country roads. 160 

Another mill in Chambersburg, Penn., as early as 1788 
was built by John Scott, and for a decade or more after 
that the newspapers of Pittsburg and elsewhere west of 
the Allegheny mountains continued to be supplied from 
this point. 166 In 1790 the first really important mill in 
Chambersburg was built by John Shryock. This was the 
Hollywell, and until well into the next century it was one 
of the noted mills of the country. Printing paper and vari- 
ous kinds of wrapping were made there at first, and then 
bank note paper of a superior quality, the United States 
Government becoming a large customer. In current fiction 
of the time are stories of how "Lewis the Robber," a 
notorious local outlaw who was then terrorizing the com- 
munity, made frequent attempts to enter this mill at night 
to secure a supply of government paper for counterfeiting 
purposes. In the hands of George A. Shryock, who fol- 
lowed his father about 1827, this mill became identified 



"*J. L. Bishop : History of American Manufactures, II., p. 301. 

im History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Warner Beers & 
Co. (1887), p. 473. 

"* I. H. McCauley : Historical Sketches of Franklin County, 
Pennsylvama (1878), p. 55. * 

161 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




John Shryock. 



with the first experiments in mak- 
ing paper from straw, and to the 
history of that branch of the in- 
dustry much of its subsequent 
record belongs. In a few years, 
under other ownership, it returned 
to its former employment of pro- 
ducing various kinds of paper 
from rags, being fitted with more 
modern machinery and many other 
improvements. 167 

A citizens' committee of the leading manufacturers 
situated in Delaware county, Penn., was appointed in 
1826 "to ascertain the number, extent and capacity of 
the manufactories, mills and unimproved mill-seats in 
the county." The committee, as one of the results of 
its investigations, reported that there were eleven 
paper-mills, annually manufacturing thirty-one thou- 
sand two hundred and ninety-six reams of paper valued 
at $114,712, and employing two hundred and fifteen 
persons, whose wages annually were $29,120. Men- 
tioned first among these establishments were the Ivy 
Mills and the Glen Mills, then operated by Mark Willcox 
and his son, John Willcox, who employed eighteen per- 
sons and produced annually one thousand five hundred 
reams of fine paper; and a two- vat mill on Chester creek, 
owned by William Martin and Joseph W. Smith, and 
operated by John B. Duckett, who, with twenty-three 
helpers, produced week by week sixty reams of quarto 
post and thirty-three reams of medium printing. 168 

In 1817 Thomas Amies, a noted paper-maker of Phila- 
delphia, produced a quantity of paper for a special print- 
ing of the Declaration of Independence, which was 
designed to surpass everything that had been attempted 
in America up to that time. The mould and felts were 
made expressly for the purpose, the size of the sheet was 
twenty-six by thirty-six inches and only the finest linen 



7 History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (1887), p. 474. 
"John Hill Martin: Chester and Its Vicinity, (1877), pp. 230-234. 

162 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

rags were used. Each ream weighed one hundred and 
forty pounds and the price was one hundred and twenty- 
five dollars. Amies was at one time superintendent of 
the Willcox Ivy Mills at Chester, but when he made this 
paper he owned and operated the Dove Paper Mills, Lower 
Merion, Montgomery county. He had drawn upon the 
Willcox establishment for the name of his mill and for 
his paper he also appropriated the Willcox dove water- 
mark. 

Another Chester county mill that had a long and sub- 
stantial existence was that of the Mode family in Modena. 
The building was, erected in 1810 by William Mode, whose 
sons, Alexander and William, began to make paper there 
in 1812, producing daily about two hundred and fifty 
pounds. In 1840 the business was discontinued, but ten 
years later William and Alexander Mode, sons of the 
second William Mode, remodeled the building, put in 
modern machinery and continued the business until 
toward the end of the century. They increased the prod- 
uct of the mill to two thousand five hundred pounds and 
it is said that on "one occasion they had paper made, dried 
and cut into sheets in three hours after the rags were 
sorted," which was boasted of as a very remarkable per- 
formance. 169 

Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless operated their 
mill on the Redstone creek in Fayette county, until 1810. 
After that it was run by members of the Jackson and 
Sharpless families in successive generations until, in Oc- 
tober, 1842, it was burned with a large stock of paper, all 
valued at $20,000; and that disaster brought the business 
to an end after fifty successful years. 170 

In Beaver Valley, New Castle county, Delaware, about 
seven miles from Wilmington, but more nearly in Penn- 
sylvania the Sunny Dale mill had its beginning in the 
early part of this century and it lasted for more than a 
hundred years. A woolen-mill was built there, in 1811, 
by John Ferra, but that was soon burned and was rebuilt 



™* J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope : History of Chester County, 
Pennsylvania (1881), p. 175. 
1W F. Ellis : History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, (1882), p. 622. 

163 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

as a paper-mill. When John Ferra died he was succeeded 
by his son, Daniel Ferra, who kept the mill until his death 
in 1860, ha'ving once rebuilt it after it was burned in 1850. 
Francis Tempest then became the owner and operated it 
for more than fifty years. In its early days of hand-work, 
writing and book papers were made, but later, tissue was 
the product, the machine equipment being a thirty-six inch 
cylinder and two one hundred and forty pound engines. 
The power was water and steam and the capacity one 
thousand pounds per week. It was a one-man as well 
as a one-machine mill. Tempest did all the work, buying 
the materials, running the engine, making the paper and 
selling his goods. 171 Thus it existed until 1901 when it 
came into the possession of Edwin Garrett. The new 
owner enlarged and improved it, making it more modern 
and increasing its output. 

In Drake's Cincinnati, published in 1815, there is men- 
tion of "new and valuable paper-mills erected on the 
Little Miami river." The mills referred to are believed to 
have been that of Kugler at Milford, and that of Howells 
at Lockport about two miles above Milford. Both made 
wrapping and writing paper, the daily product not exceed- 
ing one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds. 
Kugler's mill was built between 1800 and 1810 by a settler 
named Wallsmith who bought the waterpower at Milford 
and erected a saw-mill, flour-mill, carding-mill, dis- 
tillery, and paper-mill. Mathias Kugler, who was em- 
ployed in the paper-mill, eventually became the owner. 

The mill at Lockport, converted from a flour-mill, was 
started by Frank Howells shortly after Wallsmith had 
erected the mill at Milford ; it produced wrapping, news, 
print and writing papers, but the amount was small and 
the prices big. A few miles farther up the Little Miami 
Joseph Duval, about 1815, built a mill which was in opera- 
tion several years. Duval was of French extraction 
and had come from Philadelphia. He was socially promi- 
nent in Lebanon, near which place he built his mill, and 
was famous for entertaining. 



l The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 11. 

165 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 

Before 1830 two mills were built in Cincinnati, one by 
Thomas Graham, who has been credited with inventing 
and constructing the first paper-machine in the West to be 
worked by power. The night before the mill was ready 
to start, in December, 1826, it was destroyed by an incen- 
diary fire. The owners immediately rebuilt it, called it the 
Phoenix and had it ready for operation in June, 1827. 
The building was one hundred and thirty-two feet by 
thirty-six feet and was equipped with steam engines. 
About half a mile down on the bank of the Ohio the Cin- 
cinnati Steam Paper Mill, owned by Messrs. Phillips & 
Spear, was located. This was also worked by steam and 
employed about forty hands, producing a "large quantity 
of excellent paper" of an estimated value annually of 
$22,000. 172 These mills comprised all the paper-manu- 
facturing in Ohio prior to 1825 or 1830. 

Several mills were in Tennessee in the early part of this 
century, although since the civil war that has not been a 
paper-manufacturing state. Precisely when or where the 
beginning was made is not certain, but it is believed that 
mills were operated in or before 1810. About that time 
the general assembly of the state determined to encourage 
the manufacture of paper and two statutes were enacted, 
the first, which was passed on November 13, 1809, being 
as follows: ] ^f 

■ II si ii 

"Whereas, it is considered by the present legisla- 
ture that an increase in the home manufacture will 
promote the independence of our rising state : There- 
fore, be it enacted by the General Assembly of the 
State of Tennessee that, from and after the passage 
of this act, all persons immediately in the employment 
of the manufacture of paper in any of the paper-mills 
erected in this State, or that may be employed in any 
mill that may hereafter be erected, that they be and 
are hereby exempt from working on roads or high- 
ways or from attending musters in the companies, 
regiments or battalions to which they belong, provided 
that in all calls for militia they shall be subject in the 
same manner as they would have been had this act 
never been passed." 



B. Drake and D. Mansfield: Cincinnati in 1826. 
167 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

The second statute, which went into effect on November 
23, 1811, read as follows: 

"To encourage the manufacture of paper: Be it 
enacted, That all persons who are owners of paper, 
or shall hereafter be, shall be allowed to employ some 
person to peddle and merchandise rags without paying 
tax, provided nothing herein contained shall authorize 
those persons to take or receive any money or articles 
for said goods but rags." 

W. S. Whiteman, of Knoxville, was one of the pioneers 
in Tennessee and in the South. Reared near Philadelphia, 
he learned the business of paper-making in the mills in or 
adjoining that city, and went to Tennessee probably as 
early as 1806. It was not, however, until years later, some 
time previous to 1837, as nearly as can be ascertained, that 
he built a mill on Middle Brook creek, about four miles 
from Knoxville, and successfully operated it for a few 
years prior to his death in 1840. The machinery for this 
mill, exceedingly primitive, though fully up to that date, 
was hauled in wagons from Philadelphia, the only means 
of transportation from Philadelphia to Knoxville then 
existing. 

A son of Whiteman, W. S. Whiteman, Jr., grew up 
with a thorough knowledge of the business of making 
paper and, going to Nashville, became associated with 
John A. McEwen, O. B. Hayes and John M. Hill, who had 
already built a mill there about 1835 or soon after. Opera- 
tion of this mill, which was on the bank of the Cumberland 
river, continued for eleven or twelve years under this joint 
ownership, and then by Whiteman alone. Afterwards 
interested with the Whiteman enterprise was W. O. Har- 
ris, the chief owner and manager of The Nashville Banner, 
who assisted in building up the business of another mill on 
White's creek, about eight miles from Nashville, to which 
the machinery of the Nashville mill was removed. A pulp 
mill was also built on Paradise Ridge. 

The first Nashville mill ultimately passed into the hands 
of the Rock City Paper Manufacturing Company. On 
Duck river, about a mile from the town of Manchester, 
Whiteman Brothers operated a paper-mill for several 

168 



IN MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES 



years, and in 1837, on the Cumberland river, about a mile 
above Gallatin Landing, Morris & Rogers built a mill. 17 * 

In 1840 there were six mills in the state, the Grainger, 
Knox, McMinn, Sullivan, Davidson and Sumner. To- 
gether they had a capital of $103,000, and produced an- 
nually paper to the value of $60,000. In 1860 there were 
but two mills left, with a capital of $28,000 and an annual 
product, valued at $14,500. 174 

In Kentucky, between 1800 and 1805, Isaac Yarnall 
built two single-vat mills about six miles west of Lexing- 
ton and a one-vat mill was also started in Logan county. 
During the first decade o'f the century there was also a 
mill at Great Crossing, on the Elkhorn river, but whether 
that was Craig's mill;, that was built in 1792, is not known. 

An emigrant's directory, issued from Auburn, N. Y., in 
1817, mentioned that in the state of Kentucky there were 
several paper-mills and that in Lexington there were two 
mills operated by steam. The first mill in Louisville was 
built in 1814 by the firm of Jacob & Hicks, and most of 
its product was sold to the Western Courier. 

In 1820-21 Amos Kendall, who afterwards became post- 
master-general in the cabinet of Andrew Jackson, built the 
Franklin mill on the main Elkhorn, a mile and a half below 
what is known as the Forks of Elkhorn, a Kentucky village 
of considerable size. A year previous there had been talk 
of the federal government establishing an armory in that 
locality, and Kendall, acting on inside advance knowledge 
of the plan, had purchased the land on speculation so as to 
sell it to the government. He began the erection of his 
mill in the summer of 1820, and it was completed early in 
1821. Later the property was purchased by E. H. Stead- 
man and was operated by him and others with only indif- 
ferent financial results. In 1875 it was purchased by 
Dupont & Co., who removed the machinery to another mill 
which they owned in Louisville. 



178 R. A. Halley: Paper-making in Tennessee. In The American 
Historical Magazine, IX. (1904), pp. 213-216. 
m Goodspeed : History of Tennessee (1886), p. 275. 



169 



CHAPTER NINE 

THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

Hollander Engines for Pulp-Beating — Invention of 
the fourdrinier and its importation into the 
United States — Americans Invent and Improve 
Cylinder Machines — Other Inventors and In- 
ventions — Radical Changes in Manufacturing 
Methods Are Gradually Introduced 

UNTIL well into the nineteenth century the original 
hand processes in paper-making had not been much 
improved upon. Only a very few small mechanical 
devices had, from time to time, been introduced into the 
mills, mildly to increase their efficiency. But the vat-men 
continued to dip the pulp into the moulds and shake out the 
water until the sheet was formed, and the sheets continued 
to be hung separately on rods in the lofts to dry The mill 
of 1800, save in the substitution of the beating engine for 
the fermentation or the stamping methods of reducing rags 
to pulp, was not materially different from that of 1700. 
More than one hundred years had elapsed since the first 
mill had been built in Pennsylvania but the American in- 
dustry was still in an infantile state, as far as any appreci- 
able attempt had been made to introduce machinery or new 
methods. 

In the beginning of paper-making from pulp the rags 
were reduced by washing them in water and then setting 
the mass to ferment for many days in close vessels until 
the desired pasty state of comminution had been attained. 
An advance upon this crude method came in the introduc- 
tion of stamping rods to beat the rags into pulp. These 

170 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

rods, incased with iron at one end, were operated in oaken 
mortars. To some extent, at first, they were worked by 
hand but most generally they were moved by water-wheel 
machinery. Even this method of getting pulp was tedious 
and unsatisfactory enough. Sometimes forty pairs of 
stamps would be required to work steadily twenty-four 
hours in order to prepare a hundred pounds of rags. 

Then came the beating engine or Hollander, so called 
from the supposed country of its origin. Most author- 
ities on this subject have placed this machine first about 
the middle of the eighteenth century. Some even have 
given 1750 as the precise year of its appearance and that 
date has been generally accepted. Doubts exist concern- 
ing this, however, and it must be conceded that good 
reasons have been adduced to show that the machine or, 
at least, something analogous to it, was in use a half 
century or more before that time. The case has been 
concisely stated by an English writer: 

"Unfortunately the date of the invention of this 
important machine has not been definitely traced. The 
earliest mention of it seems to occur in Sturm's 
'Vollstandige Miihlen Baukunst/ published in 1718. 
It was in extensive use in Saardam in 1697, so that 
the invention is at least some years previous to 
1690." 176 

But by whomsoever invented or wheresoever first used, 
the machine, as it was finally developed in Holland, was 
for a process of macerating rags into pulp for paper- 
making by means of a revolving cylinder armed with metal 
blades which rotated in close proximity to a stationary 
plate composed of similar blades. Between these blades 
the stock was drawn by the motion of the roll and sub- 
jected to continuous beating until it was reduced to pulp 
consistency. The Hollander has been in uninterrupted use 
to the present day although the modern machine repre- 
sents a great advance over its prototype. During the hun- 
dred and fifty or more years that have elapsed since it was 
devised it has been greatly changed, enlarged and im- 



"•R. W. Sindall: The Manufacture of Paper, (1908), p. 16. 

171 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

proved; and others, patterned after it, have arisen. But 
the fundamental principle of the original still remains in 
the modern beating engines which are essential instru- 
ments in all paper-making. 

In Holland the first engines were small and were driven 
by wind-mills, the principal source of power in that coun- 
try. The new machine was slow in being accepted else- 
where, but it soon superseded the old process in Holland. 
It is said that, in 1770, there were eleven large mills in 
Holland where the engines driven by wind-mills accom- 
plished more in an hour than the mills in Germany, where 
water-power was used with stampers, could perform in 
six hours. In the United States the Hollanders were run 
by water-power at first and long afterward by steam- 
power. Their introduction made the first decided change 
in methods that the mills had known, increasing their 
power of production and improving the quality of the paper 
that was made, and enabling the industry to go on to a 
wider development than it had before known. Supple- 
menting the beating engine came the Jordan, an American 
invention, which takes the pulpy mass from the stuff- 
chest and further cleanses and refines it and makes it of 
uniform consistency before it is finally delivered to the 
paper-machine. 

In the early years of the century a few men of a me- 
chanical turn of mind in Europe and in the United States 
were giving more thought to the possibility of devising 
some method of making paper by machinery. In other 
industries machinery had been introduced with promising 
results, and the advantages that should accrue from its 
adoption in paper-manufacturing could be safely predicted. 
For half a century the Hollander had been gradually com- 
ing into extended use and with this, pulp could now be 
produced in larger quantity than it could be utilized in 
ordinarily equipped mills, with the vat-men working onl> 
by hand. A faster method of transforming the pulp into 
paper was an economic necessity. Machines were needed 
to supplement the Hollander and naturally they came, the 
Fourdrinier first. 

The Fourdrinier was invented by Nicolas Louis Robert 

172 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

who, while managing a large paper-mill in Essones, owned 
by St. Leger Didot of the famous French family of pub- 
lishers, conceived the idea of making paper in a continuous 
sheet. After several years experimenting he produced a 
machine which consisted of an endless wire band passing 
between two squeezing rolls, and this was the primitive 
beginning of what was developed into one of the most 
marvellous of modern machines. 

Robert obtained a patent in 1799. He had been assisted 
by his employer, Didot, to whom the patent for the new 
machine was now transferred. John Gamble, a brother- 
in-law of Didot, became interested and, going to England, 
took out patents there. Didot and Gamble entered into 
arrangements with Henry and Sealey Fourdrinier, whole- 
sale stationers, who financed the invention in England. 
With them Bryan Donkin, a practical mechanic and ma- 
chinist, was associated and he made improvements on the 
original, a new machine being patented in 1807 by the 
Fourdriniers and John Gamble and first made in 1808. In 
principle it was the Robert machine, but already it was 
far in advance of that. 

The Fourdrinier brothers spent over £60,000 experi- 
menting and improving the machine and in consequence 
thereof were forced into bankruptcy. With them Robert. 
Didot and Gamble were ruined. In 1840 a grant of £7,000 
was made to the Fourdriniers and that, with the distinc- 
tion of having the machine forever known by their name, 
was all that ever came to them for their labors and ex- 
penditures. Robert had previously received from the 
French government a bounty of eight thousand francs and 
that was the sum total of his profits from his ingenuity. 
Bryan Donkin was the only one of the group who profited 
financially. Devoting himself to the manufacture of the 
machine he did well and eventually was successful in 
establishing a large business out of it. 

In point of date the Fourdrinier, in France and in Eng- 
land, was the first really great invention that paper-manu- 
facturing had known. So great indeed was it that, not 
only did it practically revolutionize paper-making the world 
over, in the course of time, but it became firmly fixed as 

173 



PAPER MANUFACTURING twfte UNITED STATES 

the one fundamental factor of the industry in its modern 
existence, elevating it into the front rank of mechanical 
pursuits. 

Meantime, however, others had been working along 
somewhat similar lines toward the same end that Robert 
had reached. John Dickinson, of England, succeeded in 
1809. He invented and patented a cylinder covered with 
a wire cloth, the cylinder to revolve in a vat filled with pulp 
which, by a system of suction, was made to adhere to the 
cloth until the paper sheet was formed, when it was passed 
on to another cylinder covered with felting. Whether the 
Dickinson invention was early known in the United States 
cannot be said; but the first American paper-making ma- 
chine may have been suggested by it or may have been 
worked out independently. 

Models in the patent office were destroyed when the 
building of the treasury department in Washington was 
burned in 1836, and specifications of very few of the pat- 
ents issued prior to that date can now be found. A patent 
for a paper-mill was issued to Thomas Langstroth of 
Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and a patent for a 
paper-making machine to Charles Kinsey of Essex, N. J., 
in 1807. It has been thought that possibly in these patents 
the Gilpin and the Ames machines of later date may have 
been anticipated. Positive evidence of this, however, is 
lacking, and it is altogether unlikely that if such machines 
were brought out they did not endure long enough to leave 
some record, even though slight, of their performances. 

At any rate it was nearly twenty years after the inven- 
tion of the Fourdrinier in France and seven years after 
the appearance of Dickinson's cylinder machine in Eng- 
land before the American machine can be said to have 
really appeared. At that time nothing was known here 
about the Fourdrinier or the cylinder in any practical 
way. Both had been slow in adoption even in England, 
and as for the United States, they had not been discovered 
— or, at least, only theoretically. 

Description has already been given of the Gilpin mill, 
near Wilmington, Del., and an account of its pre-eminence 
for half a century, and brief reference has been made to 

174 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

its peculiar distinction as being the home of the real be- 
ginning of the making of paper by machinery in the 
United States. Gilpin had been long experimenting be- 
fore he solved the problem of a paper-making machine. 
In December, 1816, he was able to take out his patent and 
in August of the following year he put the machine into 
actual use in his mill, running off, for the first time, on 
this side of the Atlantic, machine-made paper, in place of 
the hand-made article. The invention showed increase of 
speed and power, as well as economy in cost of producing. 
The Gilpin machine was more simple and, as was ulti- 
mately demonstrated, less efficient than the Fourdrinier, 
but it demonstrated the wide possibility of a very great 
advance in the manufacturing of paper. It was merely a 
revolving cylinder making paper continuous and endless 
in length instead of in single sheets. In no respect was 
it an advance upon, even if it was equal to, the Dickinson 
of England. But its introduction into the mills of the 
United States anticipated all the foreign machines by a 
few years, at least, and gave the first decided impulse in 
this country to the making of paper by machinery. 

When finally Gilpin felt confident of success he sent to 
Philadelphia a sample — writing paper of excellent quality 
— taken from a sheet one thousand feet long and twenty- 
seven inches wide and had it deposited with the American 
Philosophical Society. Shortly after, the mill began to 
furnish this machine-made paper to the market, first for 
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser of Philadelphia and 
for other newspapers, and then for book editions and for 
writing. In 1820 and 1821 this kind of paper was fur- 
nished to Matthew Carey & Son, the Philadelphia publish- 
ers, for the letter-press and colored copper-plate engrav- 
ings for the printing of the first American editions of 
Lavoisne's famous Complete Genealogical, Historical, 
Chronological and Geographical Atlas. This was five or 
six years before any paper was made from a Fourdrinier 
in this country. 

News of this invention speedily went out, for its tangible 
results began to have their natural effect upon the trade. 
A wide and substantial reputation accrued to the Gilpin 

175 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

mills for the quantity and the quality of the new kind of 
paper that they were able to produce, and their prosperity 
increased proportionately. The Gilpins made every effort 
to keep their machine a secret, but it was impossible to 
hide it altogether and permanently. The more the success 
of the machine was demonstrated, the more were jealousy 
and envy excited among other manufacturers. 

That it would seriously and permanently affect business 
throughout the country was perfectly obvious, and all 
means, fair and unfair, were taken to procure knowledge 
of it. Eventually, by obtaining scraps of information from 
some of the Gilpin workpeople and by careful study of 
the patent, sufficient ideas were obtained to render eva- 
sions of the patent possible. Experiments were made by 
other proprietors of mills and they were soon able to profit 
by the new idea. In this they were undoubtedly aided to 
some extent by increasing knowledge here of the char- 
acter of the English cylinders. Within a few years the 
Gilpins found that they could not permanently retain the 
advantage over competitors that their cylinder had 
for a time given them. Several new and improved cylin- 
ders were brought out before 1830. Eventually the cylin- 
ders were generally introduced into mills everywhere and 
the prestige of the invention and the credit of having 
begun the making of paper by machinery in the United 
States have never been fully accorded to Thomas 
Gilpin. 177 

The story has been told, and has been generally accepted 
as true, that John Ames of Springfield, during a visit to 
New York, heard of the Gilpin machine and its wonderful 
work, and thereupon took means to find out about it and 
to appropriate the principle involved in it, with the result 
that he was soon able to make a better machine of the 
kind for his mills. Whether this is true or not cannot 
now be determined. About all that we surely know is that 
John Ames was a mechanical genius and a clever inventor. 
The Dickinson cylinder machine was patented, in Eng- 
land, in 1809, the Gilpin in 1816, and the Ames in 1822 



J. Thomas Scharf : History of Delaware, (1888), II., p. 653. 
176 



c 


H 


B 


a 




M 








l/J 


E? 1 


g 


o 


> 



> 







PAPER MANUFACTURING in f to? UNITED STATES 

— May 22. Ames was thirteen years after Dickinson and 
six years after Gilpin. He may have been an original in- 
ventor following original research, or he may have been 
merely an imitator. After him came Isaac Burbank of 
Worcester, Mass., in 1824; Gardiner Burbank of Worces- 
ter, in 1826; Isaac Sanderson of Milton, Mass., in 1829. 

But the new machine brought more trouble than profit 
to the Ameses in the beginning. If John Ames did really 
steal the idea from Gilpin, the avenging Nemesis promptly 
got after him. It was evident that the cylinder was too 
good a thing to be permitted to remain undisturbed in the 
possession of any single concern. The struggle for it 
began immediately and is a matter of court record. How- 
ard & Lathrop, who had a mill in South Hadley, Mass., 
hired an Ames foreman and built and put into operation 
a cylinder. The Ameses instituted suit for infringement 
of patent and the fight was on. 

A combination of manufacturers was formed to oppose 
the Ames claims. Both sides sent attorneys abroad to in- 
vestigate, on the contention that such a machine had been 
in use before in England, in France and in Italy. When 
the case came to trial, the patentee agreed that he did not 
claim invention of "the felting, vats, rollers, presses, wire- 
cloth, or any separate parts of the machinery," but did 
claim, as his specific invention, "the construction and use 
of the peculiar kind of cylinder and the several parts there- 
of in combination for the purposes aforesaid," that is, to 
be used in the vat containing paper-pulp. Thomas Gilpin, 
in a deposition, was one of the witnesses against Ames. 
The jury in the case, which was "John Ames vs. Charles 
Howard and others," found for the plaintiff. A new trial 
was denied by Judge Joseph Story in the October term of 
the circuit court of the United States, 1833. 178 

Litigation did not end with this decision, however. In- 
fringements continued and the Ameses were obliged to 
fight for years to protect themselves. Their legal expenses 
were a heavy burden to them and in the end they were 
unable to maintain a monopoly in the new process. 



"" Charles Sumner : Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in 
the Circuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit,!., p. 482. 

178 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

Like all other great inventions the Fourdrinier had to 
pass slowly through the region of doubt and opposition 
before it was finally fully approved and accepted. In Eng- 
land, between 1803 and 1812, Donkin had made only ten 
machines and in the next ten years twenty-five more, a 
total of thirty-five in nineteen years. It was not until later 
that the machine succeeded in establishing itself in sub- 
stantial favor. In forty-three years, after his beginning 




John Ames. 

in 1803, Donkin had made all told one hundred and ninety- 
one machines. Prior to 1825, in the United States, the 
machine had been heard of, but that was all ; none had been 
seen here. 

It has never been conclusively determined where and 
when the first Fourdrinier was located on this side of the 
Atlantic. The best evidence, however, seems to indicate 
that the machine was imported in 1827 by Henry Barclay 

179 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of Saugerties, N. Y., was set up in the mill in Saugerties 
owned by Beach, Hommerken & Kearney and was there 
started running by Peter Adams who afterward founded 
the Peter Adams Company in Buckland, Conn., and the 
Adams & Bishop Company in Newburgh, N. Y. The ma- 
chine was built by Donkin of London and was sixty inches 
in width. The senior member of this firm of paper-manu- 
facturers was Moses Y. Beach, afterward owner and 
publisher of the Nezv York Sun. 

In later years this mill was owned by J. B. Sheffield & 
Son and parts of the original machine remained in use for 
forty-five years, being finally destroyed by fire in 1872. A 
second Fourdrinier, sixty-two inches wide, built by Joseph 
Newbold, near Bury, England, was placed in this mill in 
1829. But prior to this, in December, 1827, the second 
Fourdrinier in the United States, sixty inches wide, was 
imported from England and set up in the Pickering Mill, 
in Windham, Conn. In March 1829 William Marshall 
from England brought over a machine to Boston in the 
ship Dover. 179 

The first Fourdrinier made in the United States was 
by the Smith & Winchester Manufacturing Company in 
their shops in South Windham, Conn., in 1829. It was 
set up in the mill of Amos H. Hubbard, — in later time 
The A. H. Hubbard Company — Norwich, Conn., in May 
of that year. The same company made another machine 
for Henry Hudson of East Hartford, Conn., and a third 
for the mill of W. & C. Baldwin, near Bloomfield, N. J. 
These three Fourdriniers were all that were made in this 
country before 1833. 

Writing in 1850, James M. Wilcox of the Ivy Mills in 
Pennsylvania, referred to the advent of machinery, of 
which he had practical knowledge, and said that between 
1820 and 1830 the first efforts were made to import ma- 
chinery from Europe but the experiments failed of success 
for the reason that the machines [Fourdriniers] which 
were brought from England were sometimes imperfect 
and also cost too much. He spoke of the machines made 



The Paper Trade Journal, October 26, 1897, p. 69. 
180 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

at reasonable prices in 1830 by Phelps & Spafford of Wind- 
ham, Conn., and soon after by Howe & Goddard of 
Worcester, Mass., and added, "I believe these two estab- 
lishments make all in the United States [1850]." Mr. 
Willcox expressed only qualified approval of the cylinder 
machines then in use saying : "The cylinder machine, more 
simple and less costly than the other, is in more general 
use ; but the paper made on it is not equal in quality. Not- 
withstanding it does very well for news, and the various 
purposes which a coarse article will answer for." 180 




Peter Adams. 

The first felts produced in the United States for paper 
machines were made in 1864. Prior to that time all end- 
less felts had been imported from Europe, notwithstanding 
the fact that cylinder and Fourdrinier machines had been 
slowly increasing in number here for nearly fifty years. 
The manufacture was undertaken by Samuel T. Thomas, 
Albert Johnson, Andrew Fuller and Charles C. Newcomb, 
as the firm of Johnson, Fuller & Co. A mill in Camden, 



180 Report of the Commissioner of Patents [United States] for 
the Year 1850, (1851), p. 404. 

181 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Me., was leased and equipped with machinery and the 
experiment was successful from the outset. New machin- 
ery was invented, the mill was enlarged, new buildings 
were erected and the business expanded as the demands 
of the industry increased. In 1872 the firm changed into 
a stock company called the Knox Woolen Company and 
has so continued to the present day. 

A woolen mill owned by Asa Shuler, in Hamilton, Ohio, 
made piece felts for paper-mills as early at 1854. In 1866, 
having learned from an English workman how endless 
felts were made abroad, Shuler entered upon that branch 
of manufacturing and ultimately, with John W. Benning- 
hofen as a partner, the firm became pre-eminently success- 
ful in this line. Others who were in the business between 
1870 and 1900 were: H. Waterbury and F. C. Huyck, 
Rensselaerville, N. Y. ; The H. Waterbury Sons Company, 
Oriskany, N. Y. ; H. C. Huyck and partners in Bethlehem 
and Rensselaer, N. Y. ; The Acme Felt Company and The 
Albany Felt Company, Albany, N. Y. ; The Akron Woolen 
and Felt Company, Akron, Ohio, which, in 1892, was suc- 
ceeded by the F. Gray Company of Piqua, Ohio ; The 
Lockport Felt Company, Newfane, N. Y. ; The Megunti- 
cook Woolen Company, Camden, Me. ; The Appleton 
Woolen Company, Appleton, Wis. ; Green Brothers, Caze- 
novia, - N. Y. ; The Rumford Falls Woolen Company, 
Rumford Falls, Me. ; L. Heathcote, Glen Rock, Pa. ; Weiss 
& Son, Charleston, 111. ; there had also been mills in Law- 
rence, Mass., Louisburgh, Pa., Philadelphia and elsewhere, 
before the end of the century. 

Five of these old establishments have continued to the 
present day : Shuler & Benninghofen, The Lockport Felt 
Company, The Appleton Woolen Mills, The Albany Felt 
Company and The Knox Woolen Company. In contem- 
poraneous time The Fitchburg Duck Mills have come into 
this line of manufacturing. 181 

Fourdrinier wires continued to be imported from Eng- 
land for twenty years after the first Fourdrinier machine 
was set up in the United States. In 1847 William Staniar, 



The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 84. 
182 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

who had served his apprenticeship in one of the largest 
wire-cloth weaving establishments in Manchester, England, 
came to this country for the express purpose of starting 

the manufacture here. He was admitted to be a member 

y 

of the firm of Stephens & Thomas, afterward William Ste- 
phens & Son, wire-weavers, in Belleville, N. J. He brought 




William Staniar. 



with him a model from which Cornelius Van Houten made 
the first American loom and on this, Staniar and Van Hou- 
ten wove the first American wire, in September 1847. That 
wire was sixty-two inches wide by twenty-four feet ten 
inches long and was used in the mill of J. & R. Kingsland, 
North Belleville, afterward Franklin, N. J. 

It was a difficult task introducing American wires. In 

183 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

the paper-mills the machines were generally run by English 
and Scotch tenders who were constitutionally opposed to 
most things American. Also there were trade customs to 
be overcome and importers tried in every way to keep out 
the home-made wires. In the end, however, these wires 
succeeded, in spite of all opposition, and the time soon 
came when they were recognized as being superior to 
anything of the kind that was made in Europe. 

A year after Staniar, another worker at wire-weaving, 
Robert Buchanan, came from Glasgow, Scotland. He 
located in Jersey City, N. J., but his plant was destroyed 
by fire before he was able to commence weaving. There- 
upon he went to work for William Stephens & Son in Belle- 
ville and wove with John McMurray, another newly- 
arrived Scot. 

Out of the Stephens establishment came, directly or 
indirectly, nearly all the big wire-weaving concerns of sub- 
sequent years. In the panic of 1851 William Stephens & 
Son failed. Staniar then started in business for himself, 
first in Belleville and then in East Newark, N. J., where 
the Staniar & Laffey Wire Company existed until into 
the next century. John McMurray left Stephens and, with 
the Cabbie brothers, established another Fourdrinier busi- 
ness which in time became the William Cabbie Excelsior 
Wire Manufacturing Company. The De Witt Wire Cloth 
Company succeeded the Stephens concern in Belleville and 
Cornelius Van Houten was one of its promoters. 

Robert Buchanan left the De Witt company in 1876 and, 
with his sons, Andrew and James, removed to Boston 
where they started Morss & Whyte in the business. Sub- 
sequently they went to Holyoke and established The Hol- 
yoke Wire Works which eventually became The Buchanan 
& Bolt Wire Company. William Buchanan, another son 
of Robert Buchanan, served his apprenticeship in the shops 
of Stephens and De Witt and, in 1876, with Charles Smith, 
established the Standard Wire Works in Bloomfield, N. J. 
In 1877 John Eastwood was admitted to partnership in the 
Standard Wire Works, the concern being removed to Belle- 
ville, and its name changed to Eastwood, Buchanan & 
Smith and then to The Eastwood Wire Manufacturing 

184 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

Company. In 1882 William Buchanan removed to Spring- 
field, Mass., and there was foreman of the Fourdrinier 
department of the Cheney Bigelow Wire Works. In 1896 
he went to Appleton, Wis., and, with two sons and a 
brother-in-law, established the Appleton Wire Works. 

Fifty years after the beginning there were fifteen or 
more manufacturers running about two hundred broad 
looms on Fourdrinier wires, cylinder covers, dandy covers 




Cornelius Van Houten. 



and washer wires. The home mills were almost entirely 
supplied from these sources, only a few wires, of special 
character, being imported from Great Britain and France. 
The names of the manufacturers and the locations of 
their plants were: 

Massachusetts — The Cheney Bigelow Wire Works, 
Springfield ; Buchanan & Bolt Wire Company and Brown 

185 



PAPER MANUFACTURING into* UNITED STATES 

& Sellers, Holyoke; The Thistle Wire Company, Lee. 
Connecticut — H. & T. McCluskey & Sons. New York — 
The William Cabbie Excelsior Wire Manufacturing Com- 
pany, Brooklyn. New Jersey — The De Witt Wire Cloth 
Company and The Eastwood Wire Manufacturing Com- 
pany, Belleville; Alfred Workman, Kearney; The Staniar 
& Laffey Wire Company and The Lewis Wire Works, East 
Newark ; Thomas E. Gleeson, Harrison. Ohio — The Reed 
Wire Works, Newark ; The Tyler Wire Works, Cleveland. 
Wisconsin — The Appleton Wire Works, Appleton. 

In 1916, of these early manufacturers, there were still 
left in the business the Buchanan & Bolt Wire Company, 
The Cheney Bigelow Wire Works, The Eastwood Wire 
Manufacturing Company and Thomas E. Gleeson, Inc. ; 
with them were The Lindsay Wire Weaving Company, 
Cleveland, O. ; The Joseph O'Neil Wire Works, Southport, 
Conn., and The Standard Wire Company, Harrison, N. J. 

The first American dandy roll was made in the Stephens 
shop, Belleville, N. J., in 1847, by Cornelius Van Houten. 
William Staniar lettered this and he has told how "four 
impressions of a sheet 22x24 were taken off and forty-two 
impressions put in the same place, there being 1,092 letters, 
some of which (Romans) were not more than one-eighth 
of an inch in size." 182 

Before 1800 four patents relating to the manufacture 
of paper were taken out in the United States. 183 In the 
thirty-eight years ending January 1839, patents to the 
number of eighty-eight were issued by the patent office for 
machines and processes for the making and using of paper. 
These figures for four decades do not indicate any remark- 
able inclination on the part of the makers of paper in that 
period rapidly to improve upon the methods of working in 
the industry even after conditions had been materially al- 
tered by the new machinery. Aside from the few really 
big and important additions to the assortment of mill appli- 
ances little was brought forward or even attempted. 

However, among these few early patentees were several 



1 The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, pp. 17 and 67. 
"See p. 99, ante. 

186 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

who made more than an ordinary impress upon the indus- 
try and whose achievements call, at least, for a cursory 
reference. John Ames, of Springfield, Mass., was easily 
first in respect to the number and value of his inventions. 
Notwithstanding failure fully to profit from his cylinder 
machine he continued to devise other labor-saving appli- 
ances, altogether for use in his mills. He patented few of 
his inventions but depended upon keeping their existence 
secret ; in this he was only partially successful but managed 
for a time to derive the greatest advantage from them. 
Besides the cylinder, patented first in 1822 and afterward 
in 1832, he also invented a process for preparing and dress- 
ing pulp; a process for sizing paper; a knife for cutting 
and trimming, and a process for drying. 

After the invention and improvement of the cylinder, 
by Gilpin, Ames and others, further changes and improve- 
ments in paper-making followed. At first the revolving 
mould or cylinder was turned by hand in the vat, and the 
wet web of paper was taken off by an endless felt running 
between rollers that pressed the water out, leaving the 
paper sufficiently strong or dry, to be wound upon a drum. 
When a thickness of four or five inches had accumulated 
on the drum this was cut by a large knife or saw blade, 
and then divided into packs of sheets of the desired size. 
The sheets were taken to the loft and air-dried as those 
that were hand-made. The felt used with the machine 
was continually getting filled with the soft pulp so that 
much paper was spoiled. At the end of a few hours' run 
the felt had to be removed and washed which made trouble 
and occasioned loss of time. 

Altogether the process was still slow and far from satis- 
factory, although in results better than anything before 
known. An experiment in sprinkling the felt with water 
to keep it a little more clean led to the invention of the 
felt-washer or beater and soon came the dryer to meet 
another "long-felt want." The dryer, designed to dry the 
paper in the web or the continuous sheet, and thus do away 
with the primitive and laborious loft drying, was an iron 
cylinder, generally about ten feet in diameter; in this was 
arranged a stove heated with wood fed into it through a 

187 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

door in the cylinder. After this came the steam dryer, the 
cylinder washer in the rag engine, the machine for sizing 
paper in the web, size rolls for sizing paper without felt or 
jackets, the lay-boy for taking paper from the machine, and 
the wet lay-boy for handling wet paper. 

In 1830 Phelps & Spaffbrd of Connecticut, manufactur- 
ers of paper-making machinery, constructed a complete 
machine with making-cylinder, press-rolls, steam-drying 
cylinder, reels and cutter, connected, so that at last it was 
possible for the paper-maker to take in the pulp at one end 
of his machine, make the paper, dry it, cut it into sheets of 
the desired size and turn it out ready for finishing or pack- 
ing at the other end of the machine. All this had been 
accomplished in this country while the Fourdrinier ma- 
chine, finally more famous, was being experimented with 
in England and introduced into the industry abroad. 

Inventions generally during this period ranged over a 
rather narrow field, for the industry had not yet broadened 
much in its aims or its processes. Principally they included 
the original cylinder machines and improvements upon 
them ; methods for making pulp from various fibres ; the 
sizing and cutting paper; moulds and other minor appli- 
treatment of rags; machines for drying, finishing, pressing, 
ances. As has already been pointed out, the foremost 
inventors were Thomas Gilpin and John Ames. Following 
close after those two, in the importance of ideas, were 
Isaac Sanderson of Milton, Mass., with an improved 
cylinder; Henry P. Howe of Shirley, Mass., with a drying 
machine; and William Magaw, with a process of making 
pulp from straw. 

Other less noted patentees were: John McClintic and 
George Faber, Chambersburg, Penn. ; Francis B. Howell, 
Lockport, Ohio ; John Shugert, Quincy, Penn. ; Edward 
Pine, Troy, N. Y. ; Jonas Bateman, Harvard, Mass. ; John 
M. Hollingsworth, Braintree, Mass.; Clarke Rice, Water- 
town, N. Y. ; James Sawyer, Irah White, L. Gale and Solo- 
mon Stimpson, Newburg, Vt. ; Peter Force, Washington, 
D. C. ; Hez[ekiah] Steele, Hudson, N. Y. ; Francis 
Bailey, Salisbury, Penn. ; Richard Waterman and George 
W. Annis, Providence, R. I. ; Thomas Longstroth, Bucks 

188 



THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY 

county, Penn. ; Charles Kinsey, Essex, N. J.; Isaac Bur- 
bank and Gardiner Burbank, Worcester, Mass. ; Andrew 
Sprague and Nicholas A. Sprague, Fredonia, N. Y. ; Joseph 
Truman, Bridgeport, Penn. ; Charles Forbes and William 
Debit, East Hartford, Conn. ; Reuben Farchild, Trumbull, 
Conn. ; Burgiss Allison, John Hawkins and Joseph Condit. 
Jr., New Jersey; Thomas Trench and Asahel H. Jervis, 
Ithaca, N. Y. ; John W. Cooper, Washington township, 
Penn. ; Elisha H. Collier, Plymouth, Mass. ; Samuel Green, 
Henry Clark and William Albertson, New London, Conn. ; 
Mason Hunting, Waterbury, Conn. ; Frederick A. Taft, 
Dedham, Mass. ; Phares Barnard, Whitestone, N. Y. ; 
George Bird, Walpole, Mass. ; William Coolidge and 
Michael Morrison, Boston; Homer Holland, Westfield, 
Mass. ; Edmund Blake, Alstead, N. H. ; Joseph Robeson, 
Montgomery, Penn. ; James P. Howland and Alfred 
Griswold, Muncey, Penn. ; Joseph Woodhouse, Otsego, 
N. Y. ; Joseph Hartshorne, John Reich, Edward Starr, 
Parke Shee, Jacob Perkins, Coleman Sellers and Samuel 
Eckstein, Philadelphia; Benjamin Mestayer, Ephraim F. 
Blank, Thomas Blank, John B. Pignatelle and Marsden 
Haddock, New York; Elihu H. Thomas, Samuel E. 
Foster and Nathan Woodcock, Brattleboro, Vt. ; Sidney 
A. Sweet, Tyringham, Mass.; Francis Goucher, Chester 
county, Penn. ; George Carriel and Enoch Burt, Manches- 
ter, Conn. ; Isaac Fisher, Jr., Springfield, Vt. ; Benjamin 
Cox, Northampton, Mass. ; Robert Carter, Elkton, Md. ; 
Moses Y. Beach and Abram Frost, Springfield, Mass. 184 

During the forty-five years next after 1838 there was 
a decided quickening of the inventive impulse in the paper- 
manufacturing field. Whereas in the first part of the 
century only eighty-eight patents had been taken out, an 
average of only a little more than two a year, there were 
now taken out one thousand and seventy-three, an average 
of more than thirty a year. Of this number, nine hundred 
and twenty-five were for various kinds and modifications 
of machinery and for methods of making paper ; two hun- 
dred and fifty-four were for machinery and methods for 



"* Henry L. Ellsworth : A Digest of Patents Issued by the United 
States from 1790 to January 1, 1839, (1840), pp. 112-114. 

189 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

treating rags and making pulp; seventy-nine were for 
making paper-bags; ninety-five were for making paper- 
collars, and sixty-six for making paper-boxes. 188 

The old mill-men were slow in approving the new ma- 
chines, long clinging tenaciously to the hand process. In 
this they were only giving another exhibition of the char- 
acteristic antagonism of workers in all times against the 
introduction of machinery in all industries. An incident 
has been related illustrating this aversion to the new 
methods, in a mill where cylinders had been introduced. 
"Gears had been ordered to admit of speeding the ma- 
chine ten feet per minute faster, on hearing which the old 
machine-tender, who was short and fat, expressed him- 
self by stating that when a machine was run faster than 
a man could walk it was time to quit ; and quit he did." 

The application of power in the second quarter of the 
century and the gradual introduction of the paper-making 
machines brought about decided changes in the industry. 
Before that, labor was high and consequently the cost of 
production was excessive. To a certain extent machin- 
ery remedied this. The Hollander, the cylinder and the 
Fourdrinier were improved again and again and other 
mechanical expedients, simple but efficient, were devised. 
Especially in the United States manufacturers made more 
progress than in France and England, in the practical 
utilization of the new machines and new processes. Turn- 
ing attention to producing the best qualities of paper 
they were soon able to place their machine-made paper 
in successful competition with the foreign hand-made. 

This much had been quite surely accomplished by the 
middle of the century. Nearly all the mills, particularly 
those that were newly built, had been equipped with Hol- 
landers, Fourdriniers or cylinders and other machinery. 
Even the old single-vat mills had come into line and there 
remained few of importance that any longer made pretense 
of manufacturing paper by hand. 



"* M. D. Leggett : Index of Patents for Inventions Issued by the 
United States Patent Office from 1790 to 1873, Inclusive, (1874). 



190 



CHAPTER TEN 

A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

Feeling the Stimulus of the New Machinery — 
Tariff Agitation — Mills in the East Grow in 
Size and Importance — Beginning the Industry 
in Indiana and Other States- — Making Straw- 
Paper in Columbia County, New York — Mill 
Statistics from the Decennial Census of 1840 

BY the time that the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury had passed, there were signs that the industry 
was well on its way to a development commensurate with 
its importance to the general interests of the growing na- 
tion. New machinery and changes in methods of manu- 
facture and in materials used, comparatively slight though 
these were as yet, were giving a considerable impetus to 
paper-making. The cylinder machine and the Fourdrinier, 
which came into the field practically together, were already 
in the way of producing abundant and weighty results; 
and at the same time lesser improvements in machinery 
and methods were demonstrating their usefulness. Testi- 
mony of a paper-manufacturer of that period may be cited 
to advantage in this connection. Writing in 1850, James 
M. Willcox of the Pennsylvania Ivy Mills referred to the 
advance that had been made in his time, particularly by 
the introduction of machinery and various improved 
methods. Among other things he said: 

"The interval from 1830 to 1840, was important for 
the vast improvements made in the manufacture, by 
the application of machinery, and, also, by the intro- 
duction of the use of chlorine in the form of gas, of 

191 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

chloride of lime, and the alkalies, lime and soda-ash 
in bleaching, cleansing, and discharging the colors 
from calicoes, worn-out sail, refuse tarred-rope, hemp, 
bagging, and cotton-waste, the refuse of the cotton 
mills. These articles, which heretofore had been con- 
sidered only applicable for the manufacture of coarse 
wrapping papers, have, through the application of this 
bleaching and cleansing process, entered largely into 
the composition of news and coarse printing papers, 
and consequently have risen in value 300 per cent. 

"A few mills possess machinery, and adopt a process 
by which they are prepared for the finest printing and 
letter paper. I have seen a beautiful letter paper made 
of cast off cable-rope. Hemp-bagging is an excellent 
material for giving strength, and is in great demand, 
especially for making the best newspaper. The cost 
of making paper by machinery, compared with that 
of making it by the old method, (by hand), not taking 
into account the interest on cost, and repair of ma- 
chinery, is about as one to eight. The present low 
price resulting from improved machinery ; and the low 
price of printing by steam power has placed news- 
papers and books in the hands of all ; and a great in- 
crease of production has followed within the last few 
years." 

In the same letter Mr. Willcox spoke of the gradual 
changes in the distribution of the industry that were going 
on under his observation as the middle of the century was 
reached. On this point he said : 

"There has been a greater proportional increase of 
mills in the middle and western states within the last 
ten years than in the east. Ten years ago I suppose 
80 per cent, of the supplies for Philadelphia, came 
from east of the North River ; at present, I think there 
does not come 20 per cent. Formerly, a much greater 
quantity was sent west of the mountains, and large 
quantities of rags brought in return. In consequence 
of the greater number of mills in the west, particularly 
in Ohio, New Orleans, I am informed, is in a great 
measure getting supplies there. Formerly they all 
went from the Atlantic states. 

"From the time of the Revolution, the quantity of 
paper imported has been gradually decreasing; and 
before the revision of the tariff in 1846, had dwindled 

192 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

to perhaps not more than 2 per cent, of the amount 
consumed, with the exception of wall papers, of which 
large quantities were imported and still continue to be 
from France. Since 1846, there has been an increase 
of cheap French letter paper, but the amount is small 
compared with the whole amount of letter paper con- 
sumed — probably not more than 3 per cent. There is 
also a small quantity of ledger and letter paper brought 
from England ; but as the American is quite equal in 
quality, the importation is gradually diminishing. 
Within the last two years, great ingenuity has been 
exercised both in England and in the United States, 
in trying to make a paper by machinery, to resemble 
the old fashioned hand made laid paper, (yet preferred 
by many.) To the eye, it is a pretty good imitation, 
but lacks the toughness, firmness and surface of the 
hand made. By an experienced judge, the deception 
is easily discovered. Notwithstanding, large quantities 
have been used under the supposition that they were 
hande made." 188 

In 1828 the newspapers of New York state consumed 
annually fifteen thousand reams of paper, the price for 
which was from four to five dollars a ream. All the news- 
papers in the United States used about one hundred and 
four thousand reams, valued at half a million dollars. This, 
although not the only source of increased demand upon 
the mills, was, with book publishing, quite the largest, 
and to meet it many new mills came into existence with 
machinery and other improvements. Expansion of indi- 
vidual plants at increased cost naturally followed. Where 
before it was possible to build and equip a fairly good mill 
for $10,000 or less, an investment would now represent at 
least double, triple or quadruple that amount and even 
more. A few examples are worth quoting. They are 
losses or costs reported upon mills that were burned be- 
tween 1832 and 1850: Wiswall & Flagg, Exeter, N. H., 
1833, $12,000; Laflin, Lee, Mass., 1833, $20,000; Lyons, 
Newton Lower Falls, Mass., 1834, $50,000; Brown, Tower 
& Co., Hampden, Me., 1835, $20,000; Peabody, Daniel & 
Co., Franklin, N. H., 1837, $20,000; Carleton & Co., Shir- 



"* Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1850, 
(1851), p. 405. 

193 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

ley, Mass., 1837, $25,000; R. L. Underhill & Co., Urbana, 
N. Y., 1838, $32,000; A. Bradley & Co., Dansville, N. Y., 
1838, $20,000; Phelps & Field, Lee, Mass., 1840, $20,000; 
Charles Perham, Groton, Mass., 1842, $16,000; Sharpless, 
Huskins & Wallace, Fayette county, Penn., 1844, $20,000; 
Hollister, Windsor Locks, Conn., 1846, $12,000. These 
were mills of ordinary size and value. Many were smaller 
and comparatively insignificant. A few establishments, 
like those of the Gilpins and the Ameses, for example, went 
much higher in value. 187 

Greater efficiency also resulted. In 1831 The New York 
Journal of Commerce, commenting upon these improve- 
ments, said that development had been so great in the 
preceding five years that it now used on its presses a sheet 
of paper one-quarter larger than before and costing one- 
quarter less. As years passed progress was more and more 
marked. The large mills steadily increased capacity and 
in every way adapted their methods of manufacturing and 
supplying the market, to the new and changing business 
conditions. In 1848 The New York Journal of Commerce 
again expressed its astonishment at what was happening 
in the paper trade : 

"We were informed a few days since, by a large 
paper dealer in New York, that it was not uncommon 
for him to have in his warehouse, and sell at nine 
o'clock in the morning, paper which was in rags a 
hundred and fifty miles from New York at nine o'clock 
of the previous morning. A better illustration of the 
power of steam could not be given, or of the progress 
of the age. The rags are placed in the duster, thence 
conveyed to the troughs or vats, where (in some kinds 
of paper) the sizing is mixed with the pulp, and from 
these vats the paper passes over heated rollers, and 
finally between two immensely heavy iron rollers, 
which give it the glazed surface, and it is then cut, 
folded, packed, and sent to the railroad, all in the 
course of a few hours. The telegraph enables New 
York merchants to order paper in Massachusetts at 
any moment, and receive the returns, manufactured, 
and even ruled, by almost the next steamer." 188 



^See page 146, ante. 

"•Freeman Hunt: The Merchants Magazine, XIX., p. 342. 

194 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

In the tariff agitation which prevailed between 1825 and 
1860, the manufacturers of paper did not take conspicuous 
part. Their interests were overshadowed by those of other 
industries, particularly, iron, cotton and wool. They made 
themselves heard however and were represented in the 
various conventions of the time. An anti-tariff convention 
was held in Philadelphia, September 30-October 7, 1831, 
about two hundred delegates being present from fifteen 
states in the union. Resolutions were adopted expressing 
opposition, on constitutional grounds, to the tariff then ex- 
isting, as far as it was designed to protect manufactures. 
A memorial embodying the views of the convention was 
prepared by a committee, of which Albert Gallatin was 
chairman, and was presented to congress, in the senate, 
February 9, 1832. In connection with this memorial were 
various "expositions pertaining to different manufacturing 
industries." Regarding the manufacture of paper it was 
stated : 

"'The duty on printing paper, not sized, is ten cents 
per pound, which is about 130 per cent, on the price 
in France and Italy of that quality which is most used 
here. This duty operates as a prohibition, and the 
price of the domestic article is probably increased by 
it, from 5 to 7 cents per pound. Thus the paper-mak- 
ers have a monopoly, which is uncompensated by the 
publishers, and by checking the increase of production, 
is collaterally burthensome to the printers and book- 
binders. 

"The duty on paper, which is 10 cents per lb. on 
unsized, and 17 cents per lb. sized, might be consider- 
ably reduced without injury to the makers, for the 
price is not raised by the whole amount of the duty ; 
and they would be compensated by a great increase of 
demand; and they are protected by their raw material, 
rags, being duty free." 189 

In the same year, a month later, October 26, the sup- 
porters of the protective tariff met in New York in a 
Convention of the Friends of Domestic Industry to con- 



189 The New York Ever ing Post, October 1-10, 1833. Duff Green: 
Public Documents, Senate of the United States, ist Sess., 22d Cong., 
(1832), I., Doc. 55. 

195 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

sider measures "for the support and further extension of 
the American system as involved in the protection of do- 
mestic industry." Delegates to the number of five hun- 
dred and twenty-five were in attendance from thirteen 
states and the District of Columbia. A committee ap- 
pointed to consider the subject of the production of paper 
consisted of Jonathan Seymour and Hector Craig, of New 
York; Charles Stearns, of Massachusetts, and Augustus 
Greele : it does not appear that this committee made any 
report. A memorial from the permanent committee of 
the convention was presented to the national house of 
representatives in January, 1833. 190 

Following the beginning in Berkshire county, Mass., 
other mills were built in Lee, soon after 1826, by Walter, 
Winthrop and Cutler Laflin and Stephen Thatcher. Be- 
sides these, numerous other manufacturers came in. To 
catalogue all of them and record in detail their business 
activities would fill a goodly-sized volume. Prominent, in 
addition to those already spoken of on preceding pages, 
were John Bottomley, Harrison Smith, Sylvester S. May, 
Jared Ingersoll, Joseph Bassett, Thomas Sedgwick, 
Joseph B. Allen, David S. May, E. S. May, George Wil- 
son, C. C. Benton, P. C. Baird, Harrison Garfield, Thomas 
Owen, Henry C. Hurlbut, S. S. Rogers and others in 
Lee ; Wheeler & Gibson, John Carroll, Beach & Adams 
and others in New Marlboro; B. B. Doten, and A. A. 
Mansfield in Sheffield; Riley Sweet, Asa Judd, George 
W. Platner, Elizur Smith, Ezra Heath and Joshua Bass 
in Tyringham; L. L. Brown, William Jenks and Daniel 
Jenks in South Adams; the Cranes, the Chamberlins, the 
Carsons and others in Dalton. The mills built, burned 
and rebuilt in this region, during this half century and a 
little more, were over forty in number. 

One of the Berkshire mills, which became famous in 
the annals of the business, was the Columbia built by the 
Laflins in Lee in 1826, their second mill. In its early 



180 Hezekiah Niles, Secretary : Journal of the Proceedings of the 
Friends of Domestic Industry, (1831). Duff Green: Executive 
Documents, House of Representatives, 2d Sess., 22d Cong. (1832), 
II., Doc. 78. 

196 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

career it had several owners and operators, conspicuous 
among whom were George N. Phelps and Marshall Field. 
The junior member of this firm was in much later time 
the great Chicago merchant and philanthropist. A 
younger brother of Field — Cyrus W. Field — worked in 
this mill as a boy. Afterward, from about 1840, he was 
a dealer in paper in New York city and there acquired a 
reputation of being one of the shrewdest men in the trade. 
Identification of his name with the first Atlantic telegraph 
cables has quite eclipsed recollection of him as a paper- 
maker and paper-dealer. 

Charles M. Owen and Thomas Hurlbut who, in 1822, 
acquired the Church mill in Lee, soon attained a leading 
position among the Berkshire manufacturers. They se- 
cured control of the entire Housatonic water power and 
went in for factory improvements, setting up a cylinder 
in 1833, a calender in 1834 and a ruling machine in 1836. 
Then they built another mill in Housatonic. In 1860 the 
firm was dissolved by mutual consent. Owen kept the 
Housatonic property and Hurlbut the mills in South Lee, 
Both took their sons into partnership and thus the Owen 
Paper Company of Housatonic and the Hurlbut Paper 
Company of Lee came into existence. Hurlbut died in 
1861 and Owen in 1870. 191 

Toward the middle of the century Newton Lower Falls 
developed into the notable paper-manufacturing center of 
eastern Massachusetts. Among the leading owners and 
operators there were William Hurd, Amos Lyon & Co., 
William Parker, Joseph Foster, Moses Garfield, Lemuel 
Crehore, William Curtis, Amasa Fuller, Joseph H. Foster, 
Thomas Rice, Charles Rice and John Rice. One mill, 
which was built soon after 1800 by William Hoogs, had 
the record of passing successively through the hands of 
nearly all those paper-men until it finally became the 
property of Augustus C. Wiswall & Son by whom it was 
operated in the closing years of the century to the time 
of its demise. 

Earliest among the paper-makers of Newton Lower 



181 C. M. Hyde : Centennial History of the Town of Lee, Mass., 
(1878), p. 294. 

197 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Falls were Simon Elliot, and Solomon Curtis. Allen C, 
and William Curtis, sons of Solomon Curtis, acquired 
the Curtis and Elliot mills in 1834 and, with new build- 




Lemuel Crehore. 

Founder of the Crehore Paper-Mill Interests in Eastern Massachusetts. 

ings, modern machinery and other improvements, con- 
tinued business until toward the end of the century. 

The Crehore family interests in paper-making in New- 
ton Lower Falls began in 1825 when Lemuel Crehore, 
who had learned the trade in the old Milton mill, estab- 

198 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

lished himself in business with William Hurd. Mr. 
Crehore, in 1834, purchased the John Ware paper-mill of 
1789 and, with partners or alone, maintained the business 
for twenty years. As he advanced in life he associated 
with him his sons, George C. and Charles F. Crehore. 
He died in 1868. In the third generation the business 
passed into the hands of Frederic M. Crehore, son of 
Charles F. Crehore, continuing in name as Charles F. 
Crehore & Son. From the start the Crehore mills made 
a specialty of press board and jacquard cards. 192 

Another family of paper-makers conspicuous in New- 
ton for three-quarters of a century was that of Rice. Be- 
fore 1800 Thomas Rice was a paper-maker in Needham. 
About 1810 he moved to Newton Lower Falls, where he 
owned a mill in which his son, Thomas Rice, Jr., learned 
the trade. The second Thomas Rice became an eminent 
manufacturer, controlled many extensive business inter- 
ests and was active in public affairs. He died in 1873. 
Associated with him in paper-manufacturing .was his 
brother Alexander H. Rice, mayor, congressman, governor 
of the state and otherwise prominent. The Rice mills, on 
the Wellesley shore of the Charles river, were originally 
owned by Wm. Hurd, Rice & Garfield and Amos Lyon. 

In 1829 there were sixty mills in Massachusetts, only 
six of which used machinery. About one thousand 
seven hundred tons of rags were consumed, annually, pro- 
ducing paper to the value of $700,000. No gathering of 
statistics concerning the manufactures of the state was 
systematically undertaken until eight years later. In 1837 
the general court of Massachusetts directed the assessors 
in the towns of the commonwealth to return to the secre- 
tary of state information in regard to the various branches 
of industry in the state. The secretary of state made a 
report, which was published in 1838. 

In this report the returns for paper-manufacturing 
showed that then there were in operation in the state 
eighty-nine mills, located as follows : twelve in Lee, six 



1M D. Hamilton Hurd: History of Middlesex County, Mass., 
(1890), III., 102. 

199 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

in Needham, five each in Newton and Leominster, four 
each in Springfield and Milton, three each in Dedham, 
Pepperell, Harvard and South Hadley; two each in 
Braintree, Dorchester, Walpole, Swanzey, Methuen, 
Framingham, Shirley, Watertown, Fitchburg, Hardwick, 
Worcester, Amherst and Dalton; one each in Middleton, 
Groton, Sudbury, Waltham, Athol, Auburn, Millbury, 
Northampton, Blandford, New Marlborough, Tyringham, 




Thomas Rice, Jr. 

■ Identified with the Industry in Eastern Massachusetts. 

Fairhaven, Taunton, Bridgewater and Wareham. The 
total amount of capital invested was $1,167,700, the num- 
ber of employees were five hundred and sixty-eight males 
and six hundred and five females, and the annual product 
was nine thousand and nineteen tons of paper valued at 
$1,544,230. 

This list of towns is more than locally interesting in 
many respects. Particularly it was broadly typical of the 
status of the trade in other states where paper-manufac- 

200 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

turing had gradually grown from narrow, tentative exist- 
ence into a condition of industrial importance. The wide 
distribution of the mills throughout the state is noticeable. 
Transportation of raw material from sources of supply, 
and of manufactured stock to the markets, was still a 
serious problem which railroads had not yet come to solve. 
Consequently the mills were compelled to be mostly local, 
wherever good water-power could be found. 

Concentration in situations specially advantageous to 
the prosecution of work had only begun to set in. The 
first indication of that was to be seen in the grouping of 
twelve mills in Lee, two in Dalton, four in Springfield 
and three in South Hadley, thus making a paper-manu- 
facturing center in western Massachusetts; and also in 
the grouping of six mills in Needham, four in Milton, 
five in Newton, three in Dedham, two in Dorchester, two 
in Walpole, two in Braintree and two in Watertown, an- 
other center about Boston in the eastern part of the state. 
There was another group of seventeen mills in the central 
part of the state. 

In 1845 another similar industrial census was taken in 
Massachusetts under the direction of the secretary of the 
commonwealth, the enumeration being made by the as- 
sessors of the cities and towns. The work was accom- 
plished with a fair degree of thoroughness and accuracy 
and all things considered was as satisfactory as could 
reasonably be expected, although the final report made 
the qualification that : "It is probable that the statements 
are far from presenting a complete view of the industry 
of the commonwealth.'' From this report it appeared 
that there were then in the state, eighty-nine paper-mills, 
twenty being in Norfolk county, twenty in Berkshire, 
eighteen in Middlesex and eleven in Worcester. From 
this it can be seen that the localities where the industry 
had been first established still maintained their predom- 
inance and that Berkshire where paper-making had been 
last begun, in 1801, had overtaken Norfolk where it was 
first begun in 1728. In all the mills of the state one 
thousand three hundred and sixty-nine persons were em- 
ployed; $1,144,537 of capital were invested; 15,886 tons 

201 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of stock were annually consumed; 607,175 reams of pa- 
per, valued at $1,750,273, were annually produced. 183 

Connecticut still held its position as a leading paper- 
manufacturing state, ranking fourth in the amount of 
annual production, by the census of 1840. Most of the 
printing-paper was used by the newspapers of the state 
and by the publishers of books in Hartford. Then Hart- 
ford was a publishing center, being surpassed only by 
New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Considerable of 
the paper-making was concentrated in Hartford county, 
especially in and about the town of Manchester, on the 
Hockanum river. 

In a little Manchester settlement called Union village, 
Butler & Hudson erected a mill before the end of the 
eighteenth century and about 1838 this came into the 
possession of Increase Clapp, Timothy Keeney, James B. 
Wood and Sandford Buckland, partners under the name 
of Clapp, Keeney & Co. Paper shavings were used in 
the manufacture of paper, the stock being taken from the 
book-binderies in New York. In 1850, upon the death 
of Mr. Clapp, the Keeney & Wood Manufacturing Com- 
pany succeeded to the business. Also in Manchester, in 
the village of Oakland, Henry Hudson converted an old 
grist-mill into a paper-mill that was managed for thirty 
years by the Hudsons — Henry, Melancthon, his son, and 
William and Philip W., sons of Melancthon. For many 
years the mill was run on contracts with the United 
States. Subsequently the Cheney Brothers — better-known 
as manufacturers of silk — came into possession of the 
property and they rebuilt the mill and improved the plant. 
After 1878 the mill was owned by the Hurlburt Manufac- 
turing Company, operating there as the Oakland Paper 
Company. 194 

Peter Rogers and his son, Henry E. Rogers, were 
prominent in the industry for a half century. The father 



198 John G. Palfrey, Secretary: Statistics of the Condition and 
Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the 
Year Ending April 1, 1845, (1846). 

m J. Hammond Trumbull : Memorial History of Hartford 
County, (1886), II., 256. 

202 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

was a partner in the Buckland mill in 1825 and after 1832 
had a mill solely his own where he made press-boards 
and binders-boards. His son built a new mill in 1849 
with a capacity of one and a half tons per day and it has 
been asserted that he was the first to use old printed pa- 
per for stock, having a process for extracting the ink. 

Humphreysville, in Seymour, did not long hold the po- 
sition that had been given to it by the mill started by 
General David Humphrey in 1801, although several mills 
of note were there. Six or eight mills were built, burned 
and rebuilt between 1825 and 1850 and the principal 
operators were Gilbert, Beach and Co., Lewis Bunce, 
the Rimmon Paper Company, De Forest & Hodge, 
Smith & Bassett, John S. Moshier, Daniel White, John 
C. Wheeler and Sylvester Smith. In the mill built for 
John S. Moshier in 1831 the first straw paper made in 
Connecticut was produced in 1837 when Smith & Bassett 
were operating it on lease. 

For fully fifty years Columbia county in New York 
state was noted for making paper from straw. Before 
1825 there had been mills in this region, small affairs 
making paper of the regulation kind and in the regula- 
tion manner. In 1830 two paper-makers — Hamilton and 
Wright — came from Connecticut to Chatham Four Cor- 
ners. They brought with them knowledge of the work- 
ings of the new cylinder and plans of the machine which 
they had surreptitiously obtained. Purchasing a site on 
the banks of the Steinkill where Eleazer Cady, with one 
small beating-engine, had been making paper by the hand 
process for several years, there they built a machine and 
were the pioneers on straw wrapping-paper in that sec- 
tion of the country. In 1832 the partners separated, 
Hamilton retaining the mill while Wright started a sec- 
ond establishment with a cylinder, in an old saw-mill plant 
on the same stream. During subsequent years this prop- 
erty passed successively through the hands of Cornelius 
Shufelt, Rathbone & Simmons and Staats D. Tompkins. 

A third mill for straw paper was erected by Ebenezer 
Backus and Thomas Wheeler not far from the first Ham- 
ilton & Wright mill. It was locally known as "the mud- 

203 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

mill" on account of the generally dirty condition of the 
water of the brook from which its supply was drawn. 
William Davis and Plato B. Moore purchased, in 1837, 
an old fulling-mill on the Steinkill, between Chatham and 
Chatham Four Corners and started there the fourth mill 
in the county. About a year later Phillip Winnegar and 
Plato B. Moore built a mill near Queechy lake. 

These four mills were the pioneers in the making of 
paper from straw, in this county. Rye straw for stock 
came from the farms around about and was abundant 
and cheap. The paper was not exclusively straw, about 
twenty per cent, hard stock — rope and bagging — being 
used to make the sheet run good. The mills of Wright 
and of Backus & Wheeler had fire-dryers, being the first 
straw mills in which paper was not loft-dried. 

Presently the making of paper from straw flowed over 
the border line of Columbia into Rensselaer county. In 
1845 John B. Davis purchased a site for a mill on Kinder- 
hook creek, in the town of Nassau, and in the following 
year, associated with Peter C. Tompkins, he built the 
first mill for making straw wrapping in that county. It 
was the largest mill that had yet started on straw, planned 
for four thirty-inch Hollanders and a thirty-six inch cyl- 
inder. With two engines and a drying-loft, in the be- 
ginning, after a few years the mill had other engines, a 
forty-inch cylinder and steam-dryers. It had two large 
square bleach vats whereas prior to this date the mills of 
Columbia had only one. Eventually Tompkins sold his 
interest in this mill and the business was continued by 
D. P., C. F., and Oscar Davis, sons of John B. Davis. 

Upon relinquishing his interests in Rensselaer, Peter 
C Tompkins returned to Columbia where he took pos- 
session of and completed a new mill that his brother, 
Staats D. Tompkins, was building on the Steinkill near 
East Chatham. He ran that successfully for many years 
and was the first manufacturer to make wrapping ex- 
clusivelv from straw without hard stock. 195 



""Columbia County at the End of the Century, (1900). Franklin 
Ellis: History of Columbia County, New York, (1878). The Paper 
Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, pp. 84-88-90. 

204 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 



The Ivy Mills of the Willcox family in Chester, Perm., 
were still at the height of their prosperity at this time, 
•more than one hundred years from their beginning, and 
in every way they still ranked among the leading estab- 
lishments of the country. On preceding pages 196 refer- 
ence has been made to the succession of ownership after 
1800. Joseph Willcox, son of Mark Willcox and grand- 




son of Thomas Willcox who built the mill in 1728, came 
into the business in 1808 and his brother, John Willcox, 
joined him in 1815. Another brother, James M. Willcox, 
became manager of the mill in 1826 upon the death of 
his brother, and inherited the property in 1827 when his 
father died. After the death of James M. Willcox, in 



See page 13, ante. 



205 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

1854, the mill was run by his sons, Mark, James M. and 
Joseph Willcox, under the firm name of J. M. Willcox 
& Sons, until 1859. Then it passed into the hands of a 
younger son, Henry B. Willcox, who continued to operate 
it until 1866 when the business of hand-made paper was 
abandoned. For nearly one hundred years and in the 
possession of three generations of the Willcox name, the 
Ivy Mills were mostly devoted to the manufacture of 
hand-made bank-note paper, and in this they were pre- 
eminently distinguished. The record is remarkable and 
has not been surpassed, even if rivalled, by any other 
concern in the industry. 

In 1829 the old mill, which had been running one hun- 
dred years without interruption, was torn down to make 
way for another building on the same site. Two other 
buildings were added at Glen Mills, two and one-half 
miles from Ivy Mills, one in 1837 and the other in 1845. 
In both these, machine-made paper was produced. Dur- 
ing the first year of the civil war the demand from the 
United States government for bank-note paper was so 
large that the facilities of the "hand-made" mill were 
overtaxed and much of the paper was machine-made in 
the two mills that had been last built. The Glen mill was 
in operation into the twentieth century but no longer by 
those of the Willcox name. 

Paper-making in Indiana was begun by Isaac Mooney 
in 1826. Mooney, who had been employed in paper-mills 
on the Little Miami river in Ohio, went to Indiana and 
there erected a two-vat mill, the first in the state, on the 
Big creek, about twelve miles north of Madison. Within 
a year Mooney died, a suicide, and his mill was bought by 
Alfred McDaniels who had a paper-warehouse in Cin- 
cinnati and was also selling agent for Kugler of Milford 
and Phillips & Spear of Cincinnati. McDaniels, after a 
short time, sold the mill to Hezekiah Stout who converted 
the plant into a grist-mill, that being the end of the first 
attempt to start the manufacturing in the Hoosier state. 

In 1827 a second two-vat mill was built, by John 
Sheets, a native of Virginia, who had been living in War- 
ren county, Ohio. This was located on Indian Kentuck 

206 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

creek, seven miles east of Madison. In 1832 a machine 
was put in and the first air-dried binders' boards in In- 
diana were made. Later, this also became a grist mill. 

Leeds, Jones & Bissell built a one- vat mill in Richmond, 
Ind., in 1831. The mill had a single one hundred ana 
twenty-five pound beating-engine and within ten years 
another vat, a second engine, a wet-machine and a fire- 
dryer increased the plant. These additions indicated 
the general character of the gradual improvements in all 
the small mills of the western country in this period. In 

1837 the business of this mill was incorporated and, in 
the possession of various owners, among whom were J. 
R. Mendenhall, Thomas Newman, and Charles Nixon, it 
existed until after the middle of the century. 

Another mill in Indiana was built between 1835 and 
1840, near Madison, by James Hamilton and Henry Jack- 
man. For three years only it was operated on wrapping- 
paper and then was abandoned. Other mills of Indiana 
in this second quarter of the century were: the Spier in 
Brookville, Franklin county, which was equipped with 
machinery brought from Cincinnati in 1834; that of 
William Sheets and Daniel Tondes in Indianapolis, from 

1838 to 1866, the machinery finally being removed to 
Illinois; that of Daniel Tondes in Lafayette, in 1841, 
which survived under other owners, Wilson, Hanna and 
Barber, until 1874, being run on writing, print and wrap- 
ping; that of Hanna & Wilson, which made print and 
wrapping until it was burned in 1857; a second mill 
erected in Indianapolis by Thomas Mclntyre and Jere- 
miah McLane, two partners, whose special qualifications 
for making paper seemed to be that one — Mclntyre — was 
superintendent of a deaf and dumb asylum while the 
other — McLane — was a silver-smith. 

Several other mill enterprises in Indiana dated from 
the mid-century. For about twenty years, Rhinehart & 
Robertson, Rhinehart & Wood and Rhinehart & Bowen 
successively operated the first mill in Delphi, built by 
George Robertson in 1846, burned in 1849 and rebuilt in 
1851. The mill was run mainly on wrapping and news. 
Another mill in Delphi was built in 1853 by Robertson 

207 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

& Wood. In 1859 Beckett & Gridley built the third mill 
in Delphi, equipping it with four engines and a sixty-two 
inch double cylinder. Both owners were spiritualists, and 
it has been said that while the mill was under construc- 
tion they held nightly seances and were instructed by 
ghostly advisers in the work of building and setting up 
the plant. But their familiars appear to have been evil 
spirits for the mill was a failure from the start and within 
a year was burned. 

The first mill in Logansport was built in 1857 by Will- 
iam Archer & Son and was operated, first by the Archers 
and then by James L. Baldwin, until 1868 when it was 
dismantled and the building transformed into a distillery. 
A second mill near Logansport was owned and operated 
by Eldridge and Bachman. The first mill in Elkhart was 
built in 1850 by E. R. & C. Beardsley. It was located on 
Christiana creek and had a fifty-six inch cylinder. Six 
or seven years later another mill was added under the 
same roof. Later, a sixty-two inch machine was put in 
for the purpose of running on print-paper, the other ma- 
chine being used exclusively on wrappings. The mills 
were the foundation of the Elkhart Paper Company which 
became the owners in 1868 and enlarged and improved 
the plant. 197 

A pioneer Methodist preacher named Lamden founded 
the industry in West Virginia. He was proprietor of a 
paper-mill built in Wheeling, on the Ohio river, in 1830. 
His son, Christopher Lamden, had learned the trade of 
paper-making by hand in the old mill in Steubenville, 
Ohio, and by machine in Massachusetts. The Wheeling 
mill was equipped with a machine. The Lamdens made 
tea and wrapping-paper and found a ready market for 
their goods. In 1835 the mill was burned but it was re- 
built in the following year and was then known as the 
Virginia mill. Afterwards it passed into other hands and 
made bonnet boards and wrapping-paper. 

In 1832 the Fulton mill was built by Alexander Arm- 
strong, Archibald Fisher, Joseph Morrison and Frederick 



•The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 104. 
208 



A CENTURY AND A HALF OF GROWTH 

Trendley, the last named being the practical paper-maker 
and the superintendent. During the next twenty-five 
years or more the mill passed through several hands, 
among its successive owners being R. Crowl, the Arm- 
strong brothers, Levis, Little & Co. and Spence & Hanna. 
At the height of its activity, it was run on both fine and 
printing papers, its daily capacity being about one thou- 
sand five hundred pounds of news. 

Early efforts to start paper-making in Kentucky were 
not pre-eminently successful and the industry in that state 
had a very precarious existence. 198 After the first mill 
in Louisville, in 1814, a second in that city was started 
about 1830 or 1832 and had a brief and inglorious career. 
Originally it was a saw-mill located in the woods adjoin- 
ing the town, and when all the trees which could be cut 
for lumber were used, Bainbridge & Syler, the proprietors, 
changed their saw-mill into a paper-mill. It ran for about 
three years and was then burned. The third mill in 
Louisville, built about 1836, was operated by Nixon & 
Kellogg and was subsequently purchased by the owner 
of The Louisville Advertiser. Later it became the prop- 
erty of Prentice & Co. ; in 1840 it was rebuilt at a cost 
of $9,000, but a few years later it was sold under the 
hammer to Isaac Cromey for $14,000. This was the first 
mill operated in Louisville by Dupont & Co. In the win- 
ter of 1832-33 a flour-mill in Mayville, Jessamine county, 
about seventeen miles from Louisville, was changed into 
a paper-mill, having an equipment of two engines and a 
cylinder machine. It was operated by the Messrs. War- 
nack for about two years and then changed back into a 
grist-mill. 

It is small cause for wonder that, after the lugubrious 
failures of 1810 and 1820, no attempt was again made 
to gather statistics of manufacturing throughout the 
country until the census of 1840 was ordered. But the 
third decennial effort was not much of an advance over 
those that had preceded it, being meagre in detail and 
very inaccurate. The returns gave the aggregate amount 



See page 169, ante. 

209 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of capital invested in all manufacturing in the United 
States as $267,726,579 and the number of persons em- 
ployed as 399,307. The actual facts, however, were un- 
doubtedly in excess of those reported by the official 
enumerators. 

The number of paper-mills reported were four hundred 
and twenty-six in twenty states and the District of Co- 
lumbia men employed, four thousand two hundred and 
twenty-six ; with no record of female employees, of whom 
there were many; capital invested, $4,745,239; annual 
value of product, $5,641,495. The industry was still 
largely confined to the eastern part of the country. 
Massachusetts, with eighty-two mills, was first in capi- 
tal invested, $1,082,800; in number of employees, nine 
hundred and sixty-seven; in value of product, $1,659,- 
930. Pennsylvania had eighty-seven mills; capital, 
$581,800; employees, seven hundred and ninety-four; 
product, $782,335. New York had seventy-seven mills ; 
capital, $703,550; employees, seven hundred and forty- 
nine; product, $673,121. New Jersey had forty-one 
mills; capital, $460,100; employees, four hundred; 
product, $562,200. Connecticut had thirty-six mills; 
capital, $653,800; employees, four hundred and fifty- 
four; product, $596,500. 

In addition there were other manufactures of paper, in- 
cluding playing cards, etc., to the annual value of $511,597, 
of which Pennsylvania produced $95,500, New York, $89,- 
637, Ohio, $80,000, Connecticut, $64,000, Massachusetts, 
$56,700, Indiana, $54,000, Vermont, $35,000 and Tennes- 
see, $14,000. Apparently there were no mills in Arkansas, 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana. Iowa, 
and Wisconsin. 199 



llm Freeman Hunt : The Merchants' Magazine, VI., pp. 290 and 
371 ; IX., pp. 140 and 220. United States Census Office : Compen- 
dium of the Enumeration of the Inhabitants and Statistics of the 
United States, Sixth Census, (1841), p. 363. 



210 



CHAPTER ELEVEN ' 

THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Scarcity of the Staple Linen Stock Ever Present — ■ 
Numerous Vegetable Fibres Are Tried — Curious 
Tales of Many Hopeful Experimenters — Straw 
the First Considerable Addition — Finally, Pulp 
from Wood Comes in and Revolutionizes Paper 
Making — The Great Wood Processes 

VOLUMES have been written and other volumes 
might still be written about man's quest for material 
for paper, and without exhausting the subject. Trouble 
began immediately with the discovery of the utility of a 
pulp prepared from vegetable fibre. For their raw ma- 
terial the Chinese, who first used this new process, took 
rice, the bark of the mulberry tree, bamboo, cotton, linen 
and hemp. But, with the extension of the art elsewhere 
in Asia and thence into Europe, the necessity of finding 
other substances for this purpose gradually sprang up 
and, as time went on, became more and more an im- 
pressive factor in the development of the industry. The 
history of paper-making in Europe and in the United 
States is shot through and through with the records of 
persistent speculating and experimenting in the endeavor 
to escape from the limitation imposed upon it by sole de- 
pendence upon rags. 

Broadly speaking, all fibrous vegetable material, from 
whatever source derived can be used for making paper. 
That is not to say that all fibre is really usable. Hun- 
dreds of promising experiments have failed and thus 
demonstrated that a theory, however perfect in itself, does 

211 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

not always work out well in practice. To what extent 
it is possible economically to produce, from any particular 
fibre, good paper, suitable for the needs of the time, is 
always a debatable question. It is one thing to make one 
hundred reams as an experiment and quite another thing 
to make thousands upon thousands of reams that will be 
continuously marketable. The item of cost is the con- 
trolling factor in every instance, but there are minor con- 
siderations, such as quantity and quality readily available, 
adaptability, and so on. A technical success, and a com- 
mercial surety, are not necessarily synonymous. 

Materials which have been generally considered most 
suitable for pulp purposes are : raw cotton, fibres of flax 
jute, hemp, ramie, paper-mulberry and manilla; stems and 
leaves of straws and grasses such as esparto, corn, sugar 
cane, bamboo and cotton stalks ; various kinds of wood, 
commonly spruce, hemlock and poplar, although pine, bal- 
sam, cottonwood, fir, larch, aspen, cypress, beech, birch, 
maple, chestnut and other woods are also usable. Beyond 
these and even within their field, experimenting has gone 
on extensively and always hopefully despite manifold dis- 
couragements and disappointments. 

Many lists of substances that have been tried have been 
made up and often printed. In one, upwards of a hundred 
different substances were included, some of the most 
notable of which were : trees of all kinds, alga, aloe, as- 
bestos, asparagus, bagging, bamboo, banana, beet root, 
blue grass, bran, Brazilian grass, broom corn, burdock, 
cabbage stumps, cocoanut husks, cotton seed, cot- 
ton stalks, corn husks, couch grass, palm, esparto, 
ferns, flag leaves, flax, floss silk, frog spittle, grape vines, 
gutta percha, hay, hemp, hollyhock, hop vines, ivory shav- 
ings, jute, leather cuttings, leaves, manures, marshmallow, 
moss, mulberry, mummy cloth, nettles, oakum sacking, 
peat, plantain, raw cotton, reeds, rice straw, ropes, rushes, 
sawdust, sea weed, silk, sorghum, straw, thistles, tow, wa- 
ter broom and wool. 200 



""Joel Munsell : A Chronology of Paper and Paper Making, 
(1870), p. v. 

212 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Some thirty years ago another writer on the subject 
confessed that "it would be almost an impossibility to 
enumerate all the materials which have been used for the 
manufacture of paper." But he presented a list of "those 
paper-making substances, concerning which he has ac- 
quired any information, through diligent research." That 
list numbered nearly five hundred. In it were all the 
well-known substances and others not so well known, in- 
cluding some of strange character. Among the many 
oddities were animal substances, animal excrements, brew- 
ery refuse, blackberries, cabbage, cabbage-stumps, cu- 
cumbers, dust, frog-spittle, turnips, potatoes, peas, to- 
bacco, water lilies, horseradish, pineapples and raspber- 
ries. 201 Lists like this might be extended almost indefi- 
nitely, showing how persistent and indeed sometimes reck- 
lessly has been the search for a substitute for rags. 

Within necessarily limited space one can only hope to 
range over the field cursorily, touching lightly here and 
there upon some of the most curious and most illustrative 
features of the subject of raw materials, and dwelling 
with something more of preciseness upon those things 
that have contributed materially to the growth of the in- 
dustry and become a component part of it. 

In May, 1789, J. Hector St. John Crevacoeur presented 
to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia a 
printed book of which he said, "the leaves of which are 
made of the roots and barks of different tress [sic] and 
plants, being the first essay of this kind of manufacture." 
Crevecceur was a noted Frenchman who came to America 
before the revolution and was naturalized here in 1764. 
He settled in New York and engaged in farming and 
scientific pursuits. He was the author of Letters from an 
American Farmer, describing conditions of American life, 
published in London in 1782. 203 

Much attention was early given to the subject of paper 
by the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. 



'"Charles T. Davis: The Manufacture of Paper, (1886), p. 64. 

K3 Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, p. 
173. In Vol. XXII, Proceedings of the American Philosophical 
Society, (1885). 

213 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

At a meeting of the society, December 6, 1771, Andrew 
Oliver presented "a small quantity of American Asbestos, 
found near Newburg, some prepared in Wick for lamps 
& some for Writing paper." This recalls the report that 
an asbestos paper was manufactured in a Pennsylvania 
mill as early as 1728. 205 

At one time some experimenters expected much from 
a water plant of slender green filaments similar to what 
is called frog-spittle. It was observed that fibres of this 
plant were disintegrated by action of water and rose to 
the surface as scum where, finally, beaten into pulp, mat- 
ted together and dried on the shore, they came out as 
veritable sheets of paper. It has been noted in a preced- 
ing chapter that one of the first patentees in the paper- 
manufacturing field was Chancellor Robert R. Living- 
ston. The patent which Livingston took out was for a 
new process of paper-making in which he was associated 
with P. De Labigarre, and out of it a fortune was ex- 
pected. A letter written from Tivoli, N. Y., September 
9, 1799, by De Labigarre to Peter Van Shaack gives some 
account of the wonderful discovery, which was nothing 
more than an idea of using this frog-spittle. 206 

Early in the nineteenth century the American Company 
of Booksellers of New York, Philadelphia and Boston, 
offered a gold medal valued at fifty dollars for the great- 
est quantity and best quality of printing paper not less 
than fifty reams made from other material than rags of 
linen, cotton or wool, and a silver medal valued at 
twenty-five dollars for the greatest quantity of good wrap- 
ping-paper, not less than forty reams, from new material. 
There is no record that any claimants for these medals 
came forward. 

Among early United States patents were these for mak- 
ing pulp : from beach grass, Isaac Sanderson, Milton, 
Mass., 1838; corn husks, Burgiss Allison and John Haw- 
kins, Burlington, New Jersey, 1802 ; currier's shavings. 



^Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, p. 68. 
In Vol. XXII, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 
(1885). 

*"The Historical Magazine, First Series, III., pp. 20 and 90, 

214 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Joseph Condit, Jr., 1801; pelts, John McThorndike, 1814; 
rags and straw, and corn husks to be mixed with rags, 
John W. Cooper, Washington township, Penn., 1829 ; sea 
grass, Elisha H. Collier, Plymouth, Mass., 1828; sea 
weed, Samuel Green, New London, Conn., 1809; corn 
husks, Homer Holland, Westfield, Mass., 1838. Some 
later United States patents, about the middle of the cen- 
tury, while the age-long efforts to turn wood into pulp 
were being brought to successful commercial conclusion, 
were for pulp from reeds, grain, beet and other refuse, 
ivory shavings, Spanish grass, sorghum, resinous bark, 
corn stalks, corn cobs, pine shavings and cotton stalks. 

Pulp from corn-husks was a favorite diversion of the 
experimenters back in the eighteenth century, and so con- 
tinued for a hundred years or more. Four years before 
Homer Holland took out his patent in 1838, a man in Ala- 
bama succeeded in making paper of very good quality 
from the husks of corn and from various kinds of woods 
and barks, particularly birch and poplar. But neither 
this nor other efforts matured. The Holland process 
seems to have been appropriated and improved upon in 
Austria about 1860. A new patent was granted in the 
United States in 1863 to Dr. Alois Ritter Aur Von Wels- 
bach of Vienna and manufacture was commenced in the 
Clinton mills, Steubenville, N. Y. 

A few more instances may be cited not because they are 
exceptional nor because they comprise the whole of the 
subject. But they indicate the constant activity that was 
going on until wood-pulp came in to overwhelm every- 
thing else, and the eagerness with which even the slen- 
derest thread of hope was seized upon. Said Hunt's 
Merchant's Magazine in 1841 : 

"We now learn that Messrs. E. Thorp & Sons of 
Barre, Massachusetts, paper-makers, have taken out 
a patent for the manufacture of several varieties of 
paper from palm leaf. They make, at present, how- 
ever, only wrapping paper. The editor of the Barre 
Gazette has received a few rolls, and pronounces it 
unusually strong, and at the same time delicate and 
flexible, presenting a surface smooth and suitable for 
_■ writing." 

215 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

In 1860 The New Orleans Bulletin stated that it had 
been shown seven different kinds of material, growing in 
Louisiana, and specimens of fibre made from eleven dif- 
ferent kinds of material also growing in Louisiana. Some 
of the threads were described as being of a delicate floss- 
like substance, nearly equal to silk, while others were 
strong like hemp. It was asserted that paper could be 
made of various colors, and of any quality from the finest 
white letter and silk paper to the coarsest wrapping-paper 
and from materials that were abundant ; bagasse, the 
refuse of sugar cane, cotton stalks, wild indigo and banana. 

In 1869 experiments were made in California with tule, 
a swamp land product, which was said to give a good 
quality of paper. The scarcity of rags on the Pacific coast 
affected manufacturing a great deal and the two mills 
then in California complained that they found it more 
profitable to make wrapping than printing paper. About 
the same time a manufacturer of Buffalo, N. Y., came for- 
ward with a claim that he could make wrapping-paper 
better, tougher and cheaper, from wire-grass than from 
any other material then in use. The grass could be pro- 
cured from Michigan and cost thirty dollars a ton. The 
Portland Advertiser of Portland, Me., in 1869, tried the 
experiment of printing on paper made from water-rice, 
which grew in great quantities in the northwest ; and the 
customary prediction of a paper-making revolution was 
quickly followed by the customary failure. 

Just after the civil war the discovery was made that the 
reed cane from the southern states, when subjected to the 
explosive force of steam, could be converted into a long 
fibre valuable for paper-making. This was sold in the 
northern states at twenty dollars per ton to be made into 
wall paper, or, mixed with manilla, into wrapping-paper.* 
The American Fibre Disintegrating Company had a big 
establishment in Brooklyn, N. Y., where this process was 
used upon cane and bamboo. The works of the company 
were burned before it was possible to have the process 
successfully tried. 

Great expectations were based upon peat in the latter 
part of the nineteenth century. It was plausibly argued 

216 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

that the quantity of peat in the world is enormous and the 
fibres derived from it would furnish a substitute for wood 
for boxboard and wrapping-paper. The low cost of pro- 
duction, less than one-half the cost of straw-board, was 
an item urged in its favor. An attempt to work the bogs 
of peat was first made in Ireland and there failed. An- 
other attempt was made in Sweden, without success. In 
the United States the business was established on a sub- 
stantial scale by the Pilgrim Paper Company in a mill 
near Capac, Mich., in 1906. The plant turned out thirty 
tons of box board every twenty-four hours. Notwith- 
standing its apparently promising start this "peat to paper'' 
business fell by the wayside after a few years. 

As late as 1870 anxiety and speculation over the scarcity 
of paper-fibre was at such a height that consideration was 
given to the possibility of producing pulp from animal as 
well as from vegetable substances. One ingenious experi- 
menter proposed to use fishes which, divested of skin and 
bones, were placed in a diluted solution of bichloride of 
mercury and alum until the fibres were separated. It was 
claimed that when twenty per cent of this pulp was em- 
ployed with rag the paper could be distinguished from 
the ordinary article only by its being stronger and tougher. 
It is perhaps needless to say that this fish-paper did not 
become a commercial commodity. Even more weird was 
the remarkable discovery of a man of Long Island, N. Y., 
nearly fifty years after the fish proposition. The idea was 
sufficiently told, without elaboration of detail, by an edi- 
torial commentator who thus disposed of it : 

"According to the Brooklyn Eagle, a druggist on 
Long Island has rescued the contents of his wife's 
garbage pail from the grasp of the collector, and 
using it as a competitor of easy bleaching sulphite, 
has begun his career as a paper manufacturer. The 
discoverer declines to say just what he does to the 
contents of the pail, except that he treats it chem- 
ically, presumably putting chloride of lime at the head 
of the list of the chemicals to be used. He likewise 
says that the present equipment of paper mills can be 
used and that his experiments demonstrate that he 
can make paper out of the new, yet old material. That 

217 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

fact will prove 'an epoch in the history of paper 
making.' 

"Probably it will, and when it does the full dinner 
pail and the full garbage pail will go down into his- 
tory as the 'Gold Dust Twins' of the paper industry. 
The druggist may have discovered a method of turn- 
ing garbage into No. 1 ledger, or superfine writing, 
or bond the equal of Cranes'. We hope he has, but 
we await the arrival of convincing evidence on the 
point, feeling, meantime, that it will be some time 
before 'Swell Swill Bond' will be an article to be 
found in the stock of the leading paper distributors 
of the country." 207 

The foregoing may well conclude a review that has 
been desultory rather than exhaustive and that has pointed 
only to the fact that most of the search for pulp-material 
has been utterly futile while much has been ill-considered 
or even fantastic. When all else has been disposed of we 
come finally to four great staples, rags, straw, wood and 
jute. And the greatest of these once was rags and now is 
wood. Esparto would be included if this was a history of 
paper-manufacturing in England, but its use in the United 
States has always been negligible. Until well after the 
middle of the nineteenth century the history of paper, the 
world over, at least in Europe and on the western conti- 
nent, was, in one sense, a history of rag-gathering, for no 
other materials were to any great extent available. In the 
United States rags and rags only were the fundamentals 
in all paper-making for more than a century and a quarter, 
when straw first came in and wood long after. During 
most of this period the mills depended almost entirely 
upon the domestic supply and their often desperate condi- 
tions by reason of the dearth of rags has been described 
in other chapters of this work. Not before 1800 did the 
United States draw much in the way of rags from Europe 
and at the end of the first decade of the century importa- 
tions were still slight. Then a change began to set in. A 
veteran paper-manufacturer of that period has described 
the situation that then existed : 



The Paper Trade Journal, August 24, 1916, p. 34. 
218 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

"About the year 1810 we began to experience a de- 
ficiency of raw material (rags) and were obliged to 
resort to Europe for supplies. At present [1850] we 
have an additional inducement to import our material. 
The article of cotton has here almost entirely super- 
seded the use of linen for wearing apparel and when 
much worn and reduced to rags becomes a very 
tender substance; in fact, scarcely able to support its 
weight when made into paper. The foreign rags, we 
suppose average about 80 per cent of linen, which 
when mixed with the domestic cotton imparts to the 
paper a strength and firmness which it could not have 
without it. The best qualities of writing and printing 
papers contain from 30 to 50 per cent of linen, for 
which we are entirely depending on foreign countries. 
But as the use of cotton for clothing is yearly increas- 
ing all over the civilized world, we find the proportion 
of linen in imported rags decreasing from 5 to 10 
per cent from year to year. We have an excellent 
substitute for this in our own country, did not its 
high price prevent its use — raw cotton — which makes 
a beautiful paper when mixed with the worn out rags 
of the same material. In 1837-38 when the price was 
as low as 6 cents per pound, large quantities were 
manufactured into paper." 208 

In 1818 the value of rags annually gathered in the 
United States was estimated at $900,000 and the annual 
importations were less than $100,000. In 1829 it was esti- 
mated that the quantity of rags and other paper stock 
annually saved amounted in value to $2,000,000 and in 
1832 the mills of the country paid for rags $3,500,000, 
about one-half their total cost of manufacturing. 

Statistics of the value of rags imported into the United 
States prior to 1825 are not available. In the annual re- 
ports of the secretary of the treasury rags were not sepa- 
rately listed but were classed with "all other articles," as 
the smaller imports were grouped. In 1825 rag importa- 
tions amounted in value to $79,639; in 1826, $122,624; in 
1827, $128,949; in 1828, $279,041. With slight fallings off 
in 1829 and 1831 and a drop to $72,661 in 1830, they 
mounted to $466,387 in 1832, to $707,011 in 1836, dropped 



. ^James M. Wilcox: In Report of the Commissioner of Patents 
far the year 1850, (1851), p. 404. 

219 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

to $439,229 in 1837, and then, except with fallings to 
$79,853 in 1843, to $295,586 in 1844 and to $304,216 in 
1847, went up quite regularly, year by year, with slight 
fluctuations to the amount of $903,747 in 1851. In 1854 
the million dollar mark was passed, the import figures for 
that year being $1,010,443. The imports in pounds, in 
1843 were 2,106,751; in 1844, 7,301,738; in 1845, 10,903 r 
101 ; in 1846, 9,877,706; in 1848, 17,014,587, at an average 
price of 3.68 cents per pound; in 1849, $14,941,236; in 
1850, 20,696,875, at an average price of 3.61 cents per 
pound. The imports were from thirty countries, but more 
than two-thirds from Italy alone. 

Manilla, jute and other materials were imported in small 
quantities in the earlier years of this century but records 
were not separately kept until 1843. In 1843 the im- 
ports of manilla were to the value of $42,149, jute, $37,- 
164, tow, $81,913, flax, $15,193; in 1844, manilla, $209,385, 
jute, $28,692, tow, $15,763, flax, $67,738; in 1845, manilla, 
$457,276, jute, $92,507, tow, no figures given, flax, $16,- 
337; in 1850, manilla, $659,362, jute, $192,816, tow, 
$32,421, flax, $128,917. The gross totals show an increase 
from $176,419 in 1843 to $1,013,516 in 1850. 209 

Lyman Hollingsworth of South Braintree, Mass., one 
of the founders of the Hollingsworth & Whitney Company, 
discovered that manilla rope could be successfully used as 
stock. After the panic of 1837 several years of business 
depression followed and, as Mr. Hollingsworth afterward 
told the story, he found himself not only without stock but 
also without money with which to buy it. From the 
hemp sails or canvas that he had been using in his 
mill he had cut the manilla bolt ropes and thrown them 
aside in a pile of refuse, as of no value. In the emergency 
he thought to experiment with these ropes. Cutting them 
up with axes, he worked some of the material into pulp 
and then into paper, surprising even himself by finding 
that he had produced a fine, strong manilla sheet. He took 
out a patent for his discovery, the patent, No. 3362, being 
granted, December 4, 1843, to John M. Hollingsworth and 



'"'Reports of the United States Treasury on Commerce and 
Navigation. 

220 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Lyman Hollingsworth, copartners under the firm name of 
J. M. & L. Hollingsworth. It was immediately after this, 
1845-1850, that the importation of manilla and like sub- 
stances began to assume prominence. 

Straw was the first new material that was brought to 
supplement rags, to any substantial extent. Experiments 
with straw had long been made in Europe and in the 
United States before a practical method of using it was 
discovered by a Pennsylvania man. 

William Magaw of Meadville, Penn., was engaged in 
the manufacture of potash in 1827 and after. The hoppers 
that were used were lined with long straw before the ashes 
were introduced and Magaw, in handling the straw, dis- 
covered that by macerating it he could produce a substance 
that was very like the rag pulp out of which ordinary 
wrapping-paper was made. On this idea he secured a 
patent, March 8, and May 22, 1828, and at once began 
manufacturing in a small way. The paper that he made 
was of a faint yellow color but strong and durable and 
after it came to be machine-made was sold for less than 
two dollars per ream imperial size. It has been said that 
an edition of the New Testament was printed on it at a 
cost of only five cents a copy and in 1829 it was used for 
several issues of Niles' Weekly Register. The story is 
told — and you may believe it or not as you choose — that, 
in November, 1829, at Meadville, a canal boat was launched 
that was built of materials that had 
been growing on the banks of 
French creek twenty-four hours be- 
fore and that two days later it 
started down the creek and the Al- 
legheny river for Pittsburg, ninety 
miles away, with twenty passengers 
aboard and three hundred reams of 
straw paper. 210 

One of the first with whom Ma- 
George A. Shryock. §' aw consulted regarding his dis- 
covery and his idea of adapting the 

210 The Crawford Messenger. In Sherman Day: Historical Col- 
lections of the State of Pennsylvania, pp. 256, 258. 

221 




PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

straw-pulp to the manufacture of paper was George A. 
Shryock who was then operating the Hollywell mill near 
Chambersburg, Penn. In the summer of 1829 experiments 
were conducted in the Hollywell mill and proved eminently 
successful. For several weeks the work went on, seven 
hundred to one thousand pounds of straw being boiled at 
one time and paper made at from twenty to thirty reams 
per day. 

Samples of the new paper were sent to John Jay Smith 
who was librarian of the Philadelphia Public Library and 
also editor of The Philadelphia Bulletin. Samples were 
sent to other persons in different parts of the United States 
and in Europe. Part of one issue of the Bulletin was 
printed on straw paper and a small lot made into wall- 
paper by a Philadelphia manufacturer. 

Shryock was so impressed with the results of these ex- 
periments that he abandoned the manufacture of paper 
from rags and for several months devoted his mill entirely 
to the manufacture of paper from straw. He introduced 
a small cylinder machine and always after claimed that 
"this was the first machine ever operated on that material." 
Within a year he invented the grooved wood, roll for the 
manufacture of binders-boards and box boards. At that 
time he had set up a steam boiler of fifteen horse power in 
which to cook the straw and was making from one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred reams of crown wrapping- 
paper every twenty-four hours. His discovery of the 
availability of straw for binders-board encouraged him to 
extend his operations. He built a new mill-dam, widened 
the head-race, built a new drying-house, constructed addi- 
tions to the old mill, put in four pulp engines, fitted more 
rooms for drying, and added a new steam house with 
tubs ; all this at an expenditure of about $35,000. 

In association with Nicholas G. Ridgley of Baltimore 
Shryock purchased, from Magaw for $26,000, the exclu- 
sive right to the straw-pulp process for all the eastern part 
of the United States, and plans were made to increase the 
capacity of the Hollywell mill and to erect other mills in 
Rochester, N. Y., Paterson, N. J., Old Chester, Penn., 
and Chambersburg Penn. The sudden death of Ridgley 

222 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

upset these plans and in 1831 a new firm was organized, 
composed of Shryock, S. D. Culbertson, Reade Washing- 
ton and Alexander Calhoun. This concern, known as 
G. A. Shryock & Co., built a mill on the Conococheague 
creek near Chambersburg. The mill building was one 
hundred and fifty by fifty feet and five stories high, had 
one hundred and two miles of drying poles, seventeen large 
dry presses, eight pulp engines and eight machines easily 
making one hundred pounds per hour. A big establishment 
for that time and locally known as "The Mammoth," it 
stood for more than thirty years, being destroyed when 
Chambersburg was burned in July 1864 by raiding con- 
federate troops under General J. A. McCausland; and it 
was not rebuilt. 

Relating the story of his early efforts with straw Mr. 
Shryock once said : 

"It is not difficult to tell the origin and progress of 
the manufacture of straw paper and boards, but who 
can tell the toil, labor, anxiety and mental agony en- 
dured for the first four or five years ? ... In 
my life of experiments I made paper of every descrip- 
tion from straw — wheat, rye, barley, oats and buck- 
wheat — corn-blade, all the grasses, corn-husks, white- 
pine shavings, willow wood, refuse tan, also bleached 
straw, to resemble printing paper. But as rags could 
then be bought from two and one-half to four and 
one-half cents per pound, it would not pay to bleach 
straw."- 11 

In 1853 Jean T. Coupier and Marie A. C. Mellier 
showed, in the New York Crystal Palace exhibition, speci- 
mens of paper made from straw, by a process which they 
had patented in France and in the United 'States. Feinour 
& Nixon of Philadelphia introduced the process into their 
mills on the site where the Nixon Flat Rock mills were 
later located. Then they were supplying the Public Ledger 
of Philadelphia with paper and the owners of that period- 
ical, impressed by the scarcity of rags for pulp purposes, 
encouraged the experiment with straw by trying to use 
the new kind of paper from that material. But their good 



x The Franklin Repository, Chambersburg, Perm., May 2, 1866. 

223 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

intentions did not meet with success as the story has been 
told with humorous exaggeration by one who knew. It is 
a good story and may be at least accepted as enlivening the 
otherwise dullness of veracious history. 

"The subscribers to the Ledger in many cases re- 
turned their papers with the inquiry lead-penciled on 
the margin, as to why the owners did not use wrap- 
ping paper. Complaints were made from a section of 
the city in which the Ledger was served, and in which 
a large number of goats were kept, that the subscrib- 
ers failed to receive their papers. Knowing that pa- 
pers had been served a watch was set to catch the 
thief, when it was discovered that the goats, attracted 
by the yellow color and thinking it was straw, ate the 
papers. The mortality in goats in that section in- 
creased greatly, due to the bad quality of printers' 
ink used in those days and the improper preparation 
of the pulp which was not boiled." 212 

For many years the Magaw process practically had the 
field to itself. As time went on, however, new methods 
of treating straw were devised and improvements made. 
Palmer & Rowland of Fort Edward, N. Y., in 1859, de- 
vised modifications in apparatus and in treatment. In 1860 
Eben Clemo of Toronto took out patents for making pulp 
from straw or grass by treatment with nitric acid and an 
alkaline solution. Tait & Holbrooke of Jersey City and 
New York, in 1863, came out with a plan for cutting and 
grinding straw between burr-stones and then treating it 
chemically. And others were studying the problem. 

Eventually the Nixons introduced many improvements 
upon the French process and in the closing years of the 
century the Flat Rock mills were making 2,600,000 pounds 
of straw paper annually or about ninety-three thousand 
reams newspaper size, worth about $450,000. Six hundred 
tons of rags were used, three thousand tons of straw, five 
hundred tons of soda ash, four hundred tons of bleaching 
powder and two thousand tons of coal. 213 



a2 William H. Nixon in The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 
1897, p. 59. 

a3 The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 
XX, p. 330. 

224 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

Paper from wood was a reality, from time immemorial. 
Passing - by the Chinese usage of the mulberry and other 
trees, paper-makers in Europe never ceased trying to ex- 
tract the fibres from all kinds of trees but without material 
or enduring success until well into the middle of the nine- 
teenth century. Concerning nearly every experimenter, 
it is impressively declared that the idea was suggested to 
him from observation of the fibre of wasp's nests. Reau- 
mur the French scientist, in an essay in 1719, pointed 
out this and, although it was claimed that he was the first, 
it is quite likely that others had anticipated him in this 
observation and conclusion. He had numerous followers 
down to Keller. But for more than a hundred years after 
Reaumur the wasps continued to succeed while their more 
ambitious human imitators were conspicuously failing. 

In the United States, Matthew Lyon of Fairhaven, Vt., 
made a fair quality of paper from the bark of the bass- 
wood and there were others in the field in his time and 
later. Lewis Wooster and Joseph E. Holmes, of Mead- 
ville, Penn., got out a patent in 1830 for making pulp from 
wood. They used lime and aspen trees and their process, 
which was chemical, required one hundred pounds of wood 
for five to seven reams of paper. An edition of 
Crawford's Messenger was printed on this paper. 
A few years later William Magaw of Meadville, 
contested the Wooster-Holmes patent which was decided 
to be an infringement and work under it ceased. In 1834 
Daniel Stebbins of Northampton Mass., tried the bark and 
foliage of the mulberry tree. He had a nursery of trees 
which he had raised from seeds imported from China. 
This was when the craze for cultivating the silk worm harl 
spread all over the eastern part of the United States, and 
mulberry plantations were to be as common as apple or- 
chards. But the silk-culture experiment failed and so 
also did that of pulp from the mulberry, although a few 
reams of excellent writing paper were produced. 

In 1855 George W. Beardslee in a mill in Little Falls, 
N. Y., attempted to make pulp from basswood but his ex- 
periment was not successful. In 1863 an edition of The 
Boston Journal was printed on paper made from basswood 

225 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

but nothing came from this, although it was said that 
"the paper presents a clear surface, is of soft, firm texture 
and admirably adapted for newspaper purposes." 

Milton D. Whipple of Charlestown, Mass in 1855 pat- 
ented a method of preparing wood for pulp by grinding 
wooden blocks on a stone and, in the same year, Louis 
Koch of New York devised machinery for separating the 
fibres without destroying them, by means of a series of 
rollers. An improvement in the treatment of stuff by 
chemical process was the subject of a patent by Julius A. 
Roth in 1857. Charles Marzoni of New York, in 1858, 
took out a patent for reducing' wood to pulp by mechanical 
means, using an "adamantine" stone with steam and hot 
water and in the same year Henry Voelter patented his 
method of using a rotary grinder or millstone for abrasing 
the wood. In 1863 several patents in this field were taken 
out. Stephen M. Allen of Woburn, Mass., patented a 
process of crushing the logs of wood longitudinally to pre- 
serve the integrity of the fibres which were then boiled, 
ground and bleached. Professor Chadbourne of Williams 
College came out with a process which combined chemical 
and mechanical principles and which was expected to re- 
duce the cost of pulp to one half. George E. Sellers of 
Hardin County, 111., grandson of Nathan Sellers the noted 
maker of paper-moulds in the period of the revolution, 
took out a patent for preparing fibre by vertical pressure. 

Several years of seemingly fruitless experimenting, 
principally in the town of Reading England, preceded the 
final success of Hugh Burgess and his partner Charles 
Watt in making pulp from wood by chemical process. In 
1851 they were at last able to show good pulp by their 
method and from this, white paper, suitable for printing, 
was made in a paper-mill in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire, 
England. Part of a weekly issue of The London Journal 
was printed from this paper and it passed the test full well. 
The Burgess invention, simply stated, was the producing 
"of a good pulp by boiling wood in caustic alkali at a high 
temperature" with the substitution or addition, in some in- 
stances, of chlorine or the hypochlorites for the caustic 
alkali. At that time paper for printing commanded £40 

226 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

a ton in London, made, of course, entirely from rags, and 
it was hoped that the price could be reduced nearly one- 
half if pulp from wood could be had. 

The process was patented in England in 1852, but the 
new pulp did not meet with prompt acceptance there. Dis- 
appointed, Burgess came to the United States with his 
invention in 1854 and secured a patent here, in that year. 
In this country he joined with Morris L. Keen of West 




Hugh Burgess. 

Philadelphia who had been working upon a mechanical 
process of deriving pulp from wood. Burgess and Keen 
conducted further experiments in an old engine-house of 
the Wilmington & Philadelphia Railroad, at Gray's Ferry, 
on the Schuylkill river, near Philadelphia, where Keen 
also had a lumber wharf. The experimenting period lasted 

227 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

several months and during that time various raw materials 
were tried, wood, straw, corn-stalks, bamboo and cane, 
none being found as suitable as wood. The first pulp was 
made into paper in the Warren mill of Maylandville, near 
the pulp-mill, and also by Megargee Brothers and J. How- 
ard Lewis. Larger mills were built at Royers' Ford on 
the Schuylkill, the following year and for nearly forty 
3 ears work was carried on there with Burgess as manager. 
Prejudice against the new pulp was not easy to over- 
come. For a long time many manufacturers held stub- 
bornly to the opinion that, while wood-pulp might be a 
good filler, it was not a good fibre. Gradually, however, 
soda-pulp won its place into acceptance. Jessup & Moore 
and Matin Nixon became early and large users of it and 
others followed them. For a long time there were sceptics. 
One critic wrote thus scornfully of the process : 

"The great bamboo enterprise was thrown into the 
shade by another which was organized for the pro- 
duction of paper from poplar, and located at Man- 
ayunk, on the Schuylkill river. It had been discov- 
ered that poplar could be manufactured into paper in 
twenty-four hours, and with so much economy that it 
could be sold so as to afford a profit at ten cents a 
pound ! Works were accordingly constructed of stone 
and brick [the Jessup & Moore mill] in the most sub- 
stantial manner occupying a space 1,000 feet long by 
350 feet wide, at a cost of over $500,000. United 
with the Flat Rock mills [Feinour & Nixon] they were 
represented to embrace an area of about ten acres ; 
and were thought to be the most extensive works of 
the kind in the world, and to be capable of producing 
from ten to fifteen tons of pulp a day. It was an- 
nounced in the newspapers, which always exercise an 
unbounded liberality in figures in such cases, that the 
subscribed capital in this enterprise was upwards of 
ten millions of dollars. The grandest calculations 
were indulged in the abundant supply of poplar, with 
the aid of willow and other soft woods, nearly value- 
less for fuel ; and were to result in as great a boon to 
civilization as the steam engine and the magnetic 
telegraph." 214 



"*Joel Munsell: Chronology of Paper and Paper Making, (1876), 
p. 199. 

228 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

In 1863 the business was organized as the American 
Wood Paper Company, incorporated with a capital of two 
million dollars. Works on a big scale were erected at 
Manayunk, where twenty tons of wood pulp were daily 
made, while in the Royer's Ford plant nine tons a day 
were turned out. Litigation, as usual, sprang up, but for 
years the company was able to hold its position as the lead- 
ing manufacturer of soda-pulp and paper. In this period 
Effingham Embree was active in the management. Before 
the close of the century the company failed and the Mana- 
yunk plant became the property of the Philadelphia Manu- 
facturing Company and was refitted as a paper-mill. 
Before that time the manufacture of soda-pulp had been 
established in other parts of the country. Principally, 
however, it remained in Pennsylvania where, into the next 
century, were a third of the soda-pulp mills. Compared 
with sulphite and ground-wood, soda-pulp has not made a 
large showing in number of mills or amount of product. 215 

Like many another inventor and discoverer Benjamin 
C. Tilghman succeeded and failed; succeeded in discover- 
ing something new and practical in an industrial field, and 
failed to profit from his discovery. In Philadelphia, shortly 
after the close of the civil war, he experimented with a 
solution of sulphurous acid to dissolve the intercellular 
matter of wood, leaving the fibres to be turned into a pulp 
suitable for the making of paper. The result was success- 
ful, as to the product finally secured, but an entirely satis- 
factory method of operation had not been found when Mr. 
Tilghman, after having spent much time and money, 
ceased his efforts and went to work in another field. 

After Tilghman had abandoned his sulphite experiments 
Fry and Ekman in Sweden, about 1870, carried investiga- 
tion further and the improved Ekman process came into 
practical use, first secretly, until about 1879, and then 
more openly in England and finally in a large mill near 
London in 1884. The first American paper-maker to take 



m J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope: History of Chester County, 
Pennsylvania, (1881), p. 492. The Paper Trade Journal, October 
16, 1897, pp. 59 and 140. Lock-wood's Directory of the Paper and 
Stationery Trades, (1915). 

230 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL ! 

up the process and operate on a commercial scale in this 
country was Charles S. Wheelwright of Providence, R. I. 
In 1882 he saw the working of the Ekman process in a 
small mill in Bergvik, Sweden. Although, as there shown, 
the process was evidently imperfect on the mechanical 
side, the high grade of the product encouraged Mr. Wheel- 
wright and his associates to erect, on a large scale, the 




Benjamin C. Tilghman. 

Inventor of the Sulphite Pulp Process. 

plant of the Richmond Paper Company at Greenwood 
Point, East Providence. Pulp of high quality was made 
but the mechanical difficulties in the way of practical 
working were so great that the manufacturers soon found 
themselves seriously embarrassed. Various forms of 
digesters were designed by Mr. Wheelwright to over- 

231 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

come defects in the apparatus. He took out patents in 
1884 and 1886 and was able to reduce the cost of repairs 
on lining's very considerably. 

Throughout all this period of difficulty the product of 
the mill was equal, if not superior, to any other in the 
United States or abroad, at that time and immediately 






• 





George N. Fletcher. 

thereafter. Nevertheless the process could not then be 
made commercially profitable and Mr. Wheelwright was 
forced to give it up. The Richmond mill had two Four- 
drinier machines and ran on book and news, producing 
fifteen tons a day. In 1887 the company failed with lia- 
bilities of $600,000. 21B ^ 



2181/2 R. B. Griffin and A. D. Little: 
Making, (1894), p. 185-7. 

232 



The Chemistry of Paper- 












BJ»3»H» 




\ ... .- 




PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

In after years the Mitscherlich patents for the pro- 
duction of sulphite-pulp were brought from Europe to the 
United States by August Thilmany who had bought the 
American rights. The International Sulphite Fibre and 
Paper Company was formed to purchase the American 
and Canadian rights and to enter upon the manufacture. 
Under the supervision of Thilmany a mill was built in 
Alpena, Mich., by George N. Fletcher and Albert Pack, 
two lumbermen who were primarily interested because 
they wished to find some way of utilizing the refuse from 
their lumber-mills. When completed the plant cost a little 
over two hundred thousand dollars and, in the essential 
parts of its equipment, specifications and details submitted 
by Mitscherlich were carefully followed. The process was 
very slow then, from sixty to seventy-two hours being 
consumed i'n charging, cooking, and emptying a digester 
which had been built to contain about twenty-five cords 
of wood. Within a decade improvements had been made 
in the process so that cooking was done in from ten to 
sixteen hours and ten tons of pulp a day from one digester 
was not uncommon. In the beginning sulphite sold at 
four and one-half cents a pound and by the end of the cen- 
tury it was produced for a cent a pound. Mr. Pack did 
not long continue in the business which was carried on 
alone by Mr. Fletcher until his death and afterward, until 
the present time, 1916, by his sons, though ground-wood 
in later years there shared honors with sulphite. Eventu- 
ally Michigan lost its preeminence in this branch of pulp- 
making, Maine, New York and Wisconsin, where wood 
was most abundant, having a majority of the mills. 

It has been a tale oft-told that Friedrich Gottlob Keller 
discovered from a deserted wasp's nest how small fibres 
of wood were matted into a coarse paper substance and 
how, at his suggestion, Henry Voelter, a paper-maker 
and a practical machinist, constructed a machine and in- 
vented a process for grinding wood into pulp. At the 
World's Exposition in London in 1867, and at the Paris 
Exhibition in 1867 full working plants of the Keller- 
Voelter process were displayed but they attracted little at- 
tention, although it was shown that mills in Germany were 

234 



THE SEARCH FOR RAW MATERIAL 

already producing a good quality of ground-wood pulp. 
Not many years elapsed before the process was brought 
to the United States. The Pagenstechers, Albrecht, Al- 
berto and Rudolph, acquainting themselves with the work 
that had been done abroad, imported two of the new pulp- 
grinding machines in 1866. They erected a building on a 
water-power in Curtisville near Stockbridge, Mass., and 
there made wood-pulp, in March 1867. The first lot of 




Albrecht Pagenstecher. 

pulp was tried in the near-by mill of the Smith Paper 
Company, under the direction of Wellington Smith, and 
the experiment was so satisfactory that the company con- 
tracted to use all that the Curtisville mill could turn out; 
for a year it had a monopoly of the new material. In 
1869 the Pagenstechers bought the Voelter patent for 
this country and by extensions the life of the patent was 
continued until 1884 when it expired. 

235 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

At the outset about half a ton a day was the capacity of 
the little mill in Curtisville. The pulp was formed into 
cakes by hand presses and shipped to consumers in barrels. 
In the Luzerne mill a method of running the pulp over a 
wet machine was adopted and thenceforth it was thus 



/?£/-, 




'(14 



>, til \f</MM- j& /??* 

JUL 







First Bill for American Wood Pulp. 

put upon the market. Ground-wood pulp was first sold 
at eight cents a pound but soon dropped to five and 
four cents and eventually to one cent. It was a prime 
factor in bringing the price of news-paper from four- 
teen cents in 1869 to two cents before 1900. 216 



"'A. Pagenstecher : The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, 
p. 19. 

236 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

In 1868 and 1869 several persons were interested in the 
process and small pulp-mills were built in Lawrence, Fitch- 
burg and Lee, Mass.; Norway, Me., Lanesville, Conn., 
and Luzerne, N. Y. The mill in Luzerne was the first to 
be equipped with machinery made in America and it was 
the beginning of the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Com- 
pany. None of these early mills was a financial success. 
William A. Russell of Lawrence became acquainted with 
the work of the mill in that place and, buying rights for the 
New England states, built two mills, one in Franklin, N. H., 
and one in Bellows Falls, Vt. About the same time War- 
ner Miller took a large interest in the Pagenstecher enter- 
prise and the construction of the big mill at Palmer's 
Falls, N. Y., was begun. Mr. Miller's enthusiasm and 
energy in developing the business were untiring. He was 
particularly successful in combatting attempted infringe- 
ments upon the patent, which were many, and in securing 
for ground-wood favorable tariff legislation, his activities 
winning for him the soubriquet "Wood-Pulp Miller." 

Another pioneer was Alvah Crocker of Fitchburg, 
Mass., who, in connection with his plans of developing 
Turner's Falls, Mass., into a great mill center, built there 
the pulp-mill of the Turner's Falls Pulp Company, later 
merged into the Montague Paper Company. In this mill 
poplar was used exclusively, one cord of wood pro- 
ducing about one thousand two hundred pounds of pulp. 
From fifty to sixty hands were employed and the output 
of the mill was from five to seven tons a day. 

Thus was the beginning here of the great pulp-process 
that has, in less than a half century, completely revolu- 
tionized the making of paper the world over and has ren- 
dered nugatory all efforts to utilize pulp material from 
other sources. Very soon ground-wood pulp dominated 
the field. Eventually straw for printing-paper was aban- 
doned, but was continued for boards. Soda pulp fell into 
a minor position but sulphite pulp remained as a consid- 
erable factor, though proportionately small as compared 
with ground-wood, its superiority for book-paper having 
been established. 

238 



CHAPTER TWELVE 

BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

Changing Conditions Stimulate Manufacturing in 
New England and the Middle States — First 
Mills in Fitchburg and Holyoke, Massachusetts 
— Big Increase in Straw-Paper Making in New 
York — Development of the Black River Country 
— Destruction of the Industry in the South 

AS the middle of the century arrived paper-manufac- 
turing had been established on sound and perma- 
nent foundations and advanced to position as one of the 
country's solid industrial institutions, even though it was 
not yet in the front rank. Small local mills still existed, 
isolated in all parts of the United States, as they had so 
existed for one hundred and fifty years, but no longer were 
they to be particularly reckoned with. Most of them were 
fast disappearing under the effect of altered economic and 
industrial conditions ; expanding into larger activity, being 
absorbed by the on-coming big enterprises, or abandoning 
the field altogether. Few of them survived, individually 
and unchanged, until the end of this century. From this 
point on a history of the industry, more than ever before, 
is a consideration of it in mass rather than in the multi- 
plicity of small details about small endeavors. 

When the seventh census of the United States was 
taken, in 1850, a really serious attempt was made to gather 
more comprehensive statistics than before in regard to the 
manufacturing and other industries of the country. The 
result, however, scarcely attained to the success that was 
planned at the outset, although it was better than any- 

239 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

thing of the kind that had, up to that time, been accom- 
plished. No establishment was included that did not have 
an annual production value of at least five hundred dollars. 
Two digests of the statistics that were gathered were 
made; one, in 1853, under the direction of J. D. B. De 
Bow, superintendent of the census, and one, in 1858, by 
his successor, Jos. C. G. Kennedy. Both were manifestly 
imperfect and inaccurate, and exhibited only in a broad 
way industrial conditions then prevailing in the country. 

The statistical view, prepared by J. D. B. De Bow, 217 
confined itself almost wholly to population, education, 
churches, libraries, agriculture, and occupations of males. 
So faulty was it that in many parts the exact facts cannot 
be got at, nor reliable conclusions be derived from it. Also, 
in many of its figures, it is not in agreement with the later 
abstract made by Jos. C. G. Kennedy. But, taking the 
figures as presented, there were, in 1850, in the United 
States, 123,025 manufacturing establishments, with a cap- 
ital of $533,245,351, using raw material to the value of 
$555,123,822, employing 731,137 males and 225,922 fe- 
males and producing annually to value of $1,019,106.16. 

Paper was not yet a considerable proportion of the en- 
tire manufacturing of the country. There were four hun- 
dred and forty-three mills, with a capital of $7,260,864, 
using raw material to the value of $5,555,929, employing 
three thousand eight hundred and thirty-five male and two 
thousand nine hundred and fifty female hands and produc- 
ing annually to the value of $10,187,177. This was an in- 
significant part of the whole, but it showed a slight increase 
in the number of mills, since 1840 — about four per cent. ; a 
substantial increase of more than fifty per cent, in the 
capital invested ; a decrease in the number of male em- 
ployees, but an increase in the total number of employees, 
and an increased product of about eighty per cent. The 
males employed, over fifteen years of age, were less than 
three thousand. On one page of the report the number is 
given as two thousand nine hundred and seventy-one and 



W7 J. D. B. DeBow: The Seventh Census of the United States, 
1850, (1853), pp. lxxtv and lxxix. 

240 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

on another page as two thousand three hundred and seven- 
ty-nine. Nor did these figures in the report of 1859 agree 
with the abstract made in 1858. In the former no workers 
were reported in Arkansas, California, Florida, Iowa, 
Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, Minne- 
sota, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah, and only two in the 
District of Columbia. In the abstract made five years 
later two mills were reported in Georgia, but no workers 
in the District of Columbia. 

The abstract made by Jos. C. G. Kennedy was trans- 
mitted to the senate by President Buchanan, January 21, 
1859. 218 In this it appeared that of the 443 mills re- 
ported, New York had 106; Massachusetts, 77; Penn- 
sylvania, 61 ; Connecticut, 43 ; New Jersey, 32 ; Mary- 
land and Ohio, 15 each and New Hampshire and 
Vermont, 15 each. Massachusetts had the largest 
product, in value, $2,601,628, followed by Connecticut 
with $7,226,685, New York with $1,634,579, Pennsyl- 
vania with $1,036,655, New Jersey with $888,475 and 
Ohio with $701,036. 

In Massachusetts the business increased tremendously 
between 1850 and 1855. A census of the latter year, taken 
by the secretary of state, showed: number of mills, one 
hundred and twenty-one; capital engaged, $2,564,500; 
value of product, $4,141,847; persons employed, 2,630. 

Throughout this period Berkshire county continued to 
hold its position as the section of the state foremost in the 
number of its paper-mills and the amount and value of 
products. Mills were in Lee, New Marlboro, Housatonic, 
Sandisfield, Sheffield, Otis, Hinsdale, Glendale in Stock- 
bridge, Tyringham, Adams, Pittsfield and Dalton. Many 
of these dropped out of existence and gradually, as time 
went on, the business here was concentrated in Lee, South 
Lee, Glendale, Housatonic, Mill River, Dalton and Adams. 

The Smith Paper Company, which became one of the 
big concerns of this region, was developed in the middle 
of this century. Elizur Smith, who was born in 1812, came 



218 Thirty-fifth Congress. Second Session, Senate Executive 
Document 39, p. 90. 

241 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

into the business of paper-manufacturing in 1834 when 
he bought an interest in Ingersoll & Platner's Turkey Mill 
in Tyringham. In the following year he became the 
junior partner of George W. Platner, the firm of Platner 
& Smith, thus organized, being one of the leading con- 




Elizur Smith. 

cerns in Berkshire for the next generation. The firm 
owned and operated the Aetna, the Turkey, the Union. 
the Enterprise, afterward known as the Eagle ; the Housa- 
tonic, the Castle and the Laurel. Mr. Platner also built 
a mill in Ancram, N. Y., and Mr. Smith, with his brother, 
bought a mill in Russell, Mass. Mr. Platner died in 1856, 
and for several years Mr. Smith continued the business 
under the old firm name. At one time the concern was 

242 



BEF ORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

the largest producer of writing paper in the United States, 
or perhaps in the world. It has been said on good author- 
ity that when the public demand for French or English 
paper was at its height, on account of supposed superiority, 
the Platner & Smith writing, under their own imprint, 
was considered to be the best "imported" paper of the 
kind in the market. In 1864 Elizur Smith took his 
nephews, Wellington and De Witt S. Smith, into the busi- 
ness and organized the Smith Paper Company. Ultimately 
the company owned every water privilege on the Housa- 
tonic river between Lee and Pittsfield, made their own 
wood-pulp and produced weekly from one hundred to 
one hundred and thirty-nine tons of book, news and 
manilla wrapping. 219 

A half century had passed since Zenas Crane built his 
first mill in Dalton, and he had been a witness and a great 
part of the wonderful development of this paper-manufac- 
turing region. Before his death, in 1845, he had trans- 
ferred the Old Red Mill and its business to his sons, Zenas 
Marshall and James Brewer Crane. The mill was burned 
in 1870, and its successor took the name of the Pioneer 
Mill. An old tannery, that had been in existence in Pitts- 
field near Dalton for fifty years, was converted to paper- 
making in 1848. It was operated by Wilson, Osborn & 
Gibbs and then by Thomas Colt, and became known as 
the Coltsville Mill. In 1862 the building, dilapidated and 
weather-worn, was replaced by what was then considered 
to be a very imposing structure, one hundred feet by fifty, 
where fifteen men and thirty women were employed and 
three hundred and fifty tons of rags annually used. The 
Cranes of Dalton purchased the property in 1879 and 
thenceforth devoted it to the manufacture of paper for the 
United States government, being popularly known as the 
Government Mill. Its product of twenty tons a day con- 
trasted strikingly with its earlier capacity. 

Another Crane property of about 1850 was the Bay 
State Mill, operated first by Seymour Crane and James 



"•Byron Weston : History of Paper Making in Berkshire County, 

Massachusetts. In Collections of the Berkshrie Historical and 
Scientific Society, (1895), II., p. 11. 

243 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Wilson and, after 1865, by Zenas Crane, Jr. When this 
mill was burned in 1877 a new structure was erected, 
owned and operated by the brothers, Zenas Crane and 
Winthrop Murray Crane. Another son of the pioneer 
Zenas Crane, Lindley Murray Crane, established a mill 
in Ballston Spa, N. Y., and two other grandsons, Robert 
B. and James H. Crane, built paper mills in Westfield, 
Mass. The Old Berkshire Mill, the first in Dalton, had 
long before passed from the ownership of its founder, 
Zenas Crane, into the possession of David Carson and 
his sons, Thomas G. and William W. Carson. In 1867 it 
was sold to Charles O. Brown of Dalton, George T. 
Plunkett of Hinsdale and Lewis J. Powers of Springfield. 
The mill was burned in 1872, but was immediately rebuilt. 
In the latter part of the century it was owned by a stock 
company whose members were Charles O. Brown, William 
W. Carson, Zenas Crane, Jr., and John D. Carson, a 
grandson of David Carson. Later it came back into the 
possession of the descendants of its founder, its owners in 
1916 being Zenas and Winthrop Murray Crane. 

Byron Weston entered the field of paper-manufactur- 
ing in Dalton in 1863, although he had acquired plenty of 
experience with the business before that time. Born in 
1832, he worked in clerical capacity and in the practical 
making of paper in mills in Saugerties and Ballston Spa, 
N. Y., in Hartford Conn., and in Lee, Mass. In 1863 
he bought the Defiance Mill, which was built by David 
Carson in 1824 and rebuilt by the Chamberlains after it 
was burned in 1852. The mill was enlarged and improved 
by its new owner and for years it was run on linen record 
and ledger. In 1876 Mr. Weston added to his property 
by buying the site on which a mill had been built by A. S. 
Chamberlain in 1855 and afterward owned by William F. 
Bartlett and Walter Cutting until it was burned in 1875. 
There he erected the Centennial Mill, and with the two 
mills developed the large business thenceforth known 
under his name. 

Holyoke, Mass., as "the paper city," did not come into 
existence until 1853, long after its neighbors in Berk- 
shire county were firmly established in paper-making. 

244 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

Water-power from the Connecticut river, by means of 
dams and canals, was developed after 1847, and then began 
the making of the city into a great manufacturing center. 
Joseph C. Parsons started the business in Holyoke with, 
the Parsons Paper Company, of which he was the treas- 
urer and agent, the other principal stockholders being 




Byron Weston. 



Chester W. Chapin, Whiting Street, Aaron Bagg, Lucy 
Bagg, Cyrus Fink and Broughton Alvord. Mr. Parsons 
was the practical man in the enterprise and the only one 
who possessed experience in paper-making, having been 
manager of the Ames mills in Northampton and South 
Hadley Falls, in 1840-43, and for six years part owner and 
manager of the mill of the Eagle Paper Company in Suf- 

245 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

field, Conn. He maintained his direction of the Parsons 
Paper Company until his death and was also interested in 
other paper-mills. Aaron Bagg was president of the 
company. Two years after the first mill was built a sec- 
ond was erected and later on the Parsons Paper Company 
No. 2 was organized and another mill built, this being 
devoted to bond, ledger, bristol and linens. The name of 
the corporation and the business has been continued to 
the present time, 1916, by the sons of Aaron Bagg. 

The second paper-manufacturing concern of Holyoke 
was the Holyoke Paper Company, which had a mill built 
in 1857. Orick H. Greenleaf acquired a controlling inter- 
est in the company in 1865 and retained his connection 
until his death in 1896. Mr. Greenleaf, as the senior 
member of the firm of Greenleaf & Taylor of Springfield, 
Mass., organized in 1853 as the Greenleaf & Taylor Manu- 
facturing Company, had previously owned a mill in Hunt- 




J. C. Parsons. 
246 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 




Mill of the Parsons Paper Company. 



ington, Mass., run on book, news and writing, and also a 
former Ames mill in South Springfield. In later years the 
Holyoke Paper Company was under the management of 
Oscar S. Greenleaf, brother of Orick H. Greenleaf. The 
Greenleaf & Taylor Manufacturing Company became the 
Massasoit Paper Manufacturing Company, with change of 
owners, in 1870, and soon after another mill was built. 

The Whiting Paper Company was organized in 1865, 
with L. L. Brown of South Adams as president and Will- 
iam Whiting, treasurer and agent. In the course of time 
William Whiting became president of the concern and his 
son, William F. Whiting, the treasurer, the latter suc- 
ceeding to the presidency on the death of his father, with 
Samuel R. Whiting as treasurer. The senior William 
Whiting was connected with the Holyoke Paper Com- 
pany and the Hampden Paper Company before he organ- 
ized the corporation that bears his name. His first mill, 
built in 1865, was followed by a second one in 1872. Still 
later Mr. Whiting organized the Collins Paper Company 
and built a mill in North Wilbraham, Mass. The Holyoke 
and the North Wilbraham mills, after twenty-five years or 

247 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




Aaron Bagg. 

more of successful operation, had the reputation of being 
the largest makers of fine writing in the world. 

The Newton Brothers, James H., Moses, Daniel H. and 
John C, were conspicuous in the paper-manufacturing of 
the Connecticut river valley for half a century. Primarily 
they were mill constructors, erecting many buildings for 
mill companies. But they were also operators of some of 
the mills that they erected and equipped, such as the 
Franklin and Albion. One of their many enterprises was 
the first mill of the Crocker Manufacturing Company, 
which was built by them in 1870 and sold the following 
year to S. S. and D. P. Crocker. The company made a 
specialty of collar-paper and added to their property by 
purchasing the old Albion mill in 1878. Ultimately the 
company became the Crocker-McElwain Company, manu- 
facturers of bond, bristol, envelope and papeterie papers. 
Moses Newton was superintendent of the Hampden Paper 

248 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

Company and, in 1877, with James Ramage and George 
A. Clarke, he organized the Newton Paper Company. 

The Southworth brothers were engaged in paper-manu- 
facturing in western Massachusetts and Connecticut from 
the early years of the century, and particularly after 1850. 
Wells Southworth built a mill in Mittineague, West 
Springfield, in 1839, and there made fine writing- 
paper by hand. His mill became the property of the South- 
worth Manufacturing Company, of which, for more than 
fifty years, he was president and which later became the 
Southworth Company, in the control of his son, Horatio 
W. Southworth. A younger brother, Edward Southworth, 
was connected with the paper-manufacturing in Mit- 
tineague in 1839 and the two brothers also organized the 
Hampshire Paper Company of South Hadley Falls. A 
nephew, John H. Southworth, in 1849 and after, was 
business agent for two mills, one in Poquannock and one 




William Whiting. 
249 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

in Rainbow, Conn. With his brothers he had an interest 
in the Southworth Manufacturing Company and the 
Hampshire Paper Company, of which he was treasurer. 
In South Hadley Falls, across the river from Holyoke, 
the Carew Manufacturing Company built a mill in 1848, 
the structure being burned and rebuilt in 1873. Joseph 
Carew, the treasurer and agent of the company, had his 
first experience in the South Hadley Falls mill of Howard 
& Lathrop, the competitors of the celebrated Ameses early 
in the nineteenth century. In 1830 he took charge of that 
mill, remaining until it was burned in 1847. In the 
following year he organized the Carew Manufacturing 
Company. At its prime the Carew mill had a capacity of 
three thousand pounds of fine writing every twenty-four 




James H. Newton. 
250 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 




Wells South worth. 



hours. The business was continuing- in 1916, with pro- 
duction increased to twenty-four thousand pounds a day 
on ledger, linen, bond and writing. The mill was very 
successful from the start, and, at one time, had acquired 
the habit of earning an annual one hundred per cent, divi- 
dend on the capital of the company and a reserve in addi- 
tion. The second mill in South Hadley Falls was that 
of the Hampshire Paper Company, a concern incorporated 
by the Southworth brothers and several associates. The 
mill was run on writing and bristol board, but in contem- 
poraneous time has produced bond only. 220 

In Fitchburg, Mass., paper-making began in a single 



*** N. B. Sylvester : History of the Connecticut Valley in Mas- 
sachusetts, (1879), II., pp. 626, 890, 915-937, 1052. The Paper 
Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 69. Lockwood's Directory of 
the Paper and Stationery Trade, 1873-1916. 

251 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

small mill owned by Leonard Burbank of the Worces- 
ter family of paper-makers after 1801. Little was done, 
however, until toward the middle of the century, al- 
though Alvah Crocker, with whose name paper-manu- 
facturing in Fitchburg became conspicuously identified, 
arrived and bought the Burbank mill in 1823. Crocker 
was born in Leominster, near Fitchburg, his father be- 
ing a vat-man in the mill of Nichols & Kendall, and 




Joseph Carew. 



there he learned the trade, afterward working in a mill 
in Franklin, N. H, In 1826 he built a mill for himself, 
the second in Fitchburg. He was then only twenty-five 
years of age. In 1851 he took Gardner S. Burbank as 
a partner and for sixty-five years the concern of 
Crocker, Burbank & Co. has continued, first as a part- 
nership and then as a corporation, in the hands of 
Crocker, Burbank, and Crockers of the second and third 
generations. 

253 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




Alvah Crocker. 

Other mills and their owners in Fitchburg by the 
middle of the century were: Snow mill, 1839, S. S. 
Crocker; Cascade, 1847, S. A. Wheeler and partners; 
Whitney, 1847, Whitney & Rogart; Upton, 1851, 
Edward Upton and Alvah Crocker; Hanna, 1852, 
George and Joseph Brown; Lyon, 1853, Moses 
G. and B. F. Lyon; Stone, 1857, S. A. Wheeler and 
Joel Ames. Alvah Crocker was interested in several of 
these from the outset, and ultimately they all became 
the property of Crocker, Burbank & Co. 

Gardner S. Burbank was born into paper-making. 
He was a son of Abijah Burbank of Millbury, who built 
the first mill in Worcester county in the revolutionary 
period and was a cousin of Leonard Burbank. He 
learned his trade in Montpelier, Vt., worked in the 
Millbury mill under his uncle, General Caleb Burbank; 

254 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 



worked in Worcester in the mill owned by his uncle, 
Elijah Burbank; was a partner in the Russell mill with 
Marshall Field and Cyrus W. Field, in 1846, and arrived 
in Fitchburg to be a partner with Alvah Crocker five 
years later. He continued in the firm until 1866, when 
he retired from active business. He died in 1888. 

Another Fitchburg manufacturer of note was Rodney 
Wallace, who was born in Ipswich, N. H., in 1823, and 
soon after 1853 was established in Fitchburg as a whole- 
sale dealer in books and stationery. In December, 1864. 
he was associated with Stephen Shipley and Benjamin 
Snow in buying the Lyon paper-mill, and beginning busi- 
ness as the West Fitchburg Paper Company. In 1869 
he became sole owner of the property, and enlarged the 
plant by adding two new mills and new and improved 
machinery, so that a few years later it had a capacity of 



G. S. Burbank. 
255 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

thirty thousand pounds a day. Mr. Wallace continued 
to be a manufacturer of paper until his death, when he 
was succeeded by his sons, Herbert I. and George R. 
Wallace. In fifty years from its start the one little mill 



George Bird. 

had expanded to a plant of four mills, with a daily ca- 
pacity of one hundred and forty thousand pounds. 221 

Another paper-maker whose name was associated with 
Milton was George Bird, who came from Maine in 1795. 
He purchased water-power and a mill site and built a 



m D. H. Hurd: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, 
(1889), III., pp. 275, 310-19. 

256 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

mill. In 1812 he purchased water rights on the Neponset 
river in what afterward became the town of Walpole. 
There he established the paper-manufacturing business 
that has been in the hands of the Bird family for more 
than one hundred years. In the second generation Francis 
W. Bird, who was born in 1809 and died in 1894, was 
not only a successful paper-manufacturer, but was also 
one of the noted men in public life in Massachusetts in his 
generation. Charles S. Bird, who was born in 1855, suc- 
ceeded his father in ownership and management of the 
Bird mills. He improved, developed and extended the 
property until it embraced a box-mill in the original home 
in Walpole, three mills in Norwood, a mill in Phillips- 
dale, R. I., and two mills in Canada — one in Pont Rouge, 
Quebec, and the other in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Connecticut had between forty and fifty mills in the 
decade 1850-60. Special interest attached to several of 
them. In Buckland, in 1825, Joseph Chamberlain had a 
mill that had been erected by Richard L. Jones forty years 
before. Henry Champion, Samuel C. Maxon, William 
Debit and the Goodwins — George, Henry and Edward — 
were among the owners who followed Chamberlain. In 
1868 this mill was sold to Peter Adams, he who had the 
distinction of setting up and working the first Fourdrinier 
in the United States, in Saugerties, New York, in 1827. 
Adams devoted himself chiefly to writing-paper, and at 
one time his mill was considered to be one of the largest 
and best of its kind in the country. 

A famous mill of its day was that of the Chelsea Manu- 
facturing Company in Norwich, which was "claimed to be 
the largest paper-mill establishment, not only in the United 
States, but the largest in the world." 222 The principal 
building of the plant was three hundred and seventy-five 
feet long and there were several detached buildings. The 
equipment included twenty-six beating engines and six 
paper-making machines. By the census of 1860 it ap- 
peared that seventy-five males and one hundred and five 
females were employed and the annual product was valued 



''Frances M. Caulkins: History of Norwich, Conn., p. 620. 

257 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

at $475,000. At the height of its prosperity David Smith 
of Norwich and J. C. Rives of The Congressional Globe, 
Washington, D. C, were the principal proprietors. But 
bigness did not save the establishment, for it failed and 
was sold out in 1865. 

Paper-making began in Windsor Locks about 1836 
when Charles Haskell Dexter started to manufacture 
wrapping in the basement room of an old grist-mill which 
he owned with Jabez Haskell. Ten years later he built a 
mill which became the foundation of the works of C. H. 




jJB * IBS 




C. H. Dexter. 

Dexter & Sons. In 1856 Persee & Brooks built and put 
into operation a mill that was reputed to be one of the 
largest then existing in the country. The business was 
incorporated with a capital of $450,000, but it met with 

258 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 



financial disaster. Reorganized, the concern became the 
Seymour Paper Company of contemporaneous times. 

A census of the state of New York was taken in 1855. 
The figures reported were : paper mills, one hundred and 
nine; capital, $1,584,200; value of product, $2,805,147. 
The straw-mills were thirty-seven, capital in real estate 
and machinery, $333,400; value of product, $250,846; 
persons employed, two hundred and fifty-four. 223 

At the middle of the century Columbia county, New 
York, and the neighboring region was at the height of its 
straw-wrapping prosperity. Modern improvements came 
into use, tubular boilers, steam-dryers and round bleach- 
vats with false bottoms ; the business was stimulated and 
many new mills were built. On both sides of the Hudson 
river fifty or more mills were being successfully operated. 
Gathering the names of these mills and of the men who 
built and ran them in the days of this top-round prosperity 
seems like going through a graveyard trying to decipher 
the names on the old tombstones. A few of them stood 
out most prominently in their times ; the Philip, the Phil- 
mont, the Agawamuck, the Garner, the Mesick, the 
Davis, the Columbia, the Rossman and a score of others, 
But before the end of the century nearly all these were 
memories only. •; 

The first Chittenden mills, 1801 and 1809, in Stockport, 
were followed by others, particularly one that eventually 
came into possession of J. W. Rossman. This began in 
1846 and, in 1862, it was expanded and improved. In 
1878 and later the mill had a sixty-two-inch and a sixty- 
eight-inch machine, with four thirty-six-inch engines and 
produced fourteen hundred reams of wrapping paper a 
day. A mill built in Chatham, about 1840, by Dickey & 
Wilder, who had been there from 1828, was acquired by 
the Gilbert brothers and became widely known. It was 
running as late as 1880 and had a capacity of several 
hundred tons a year, operating one fifty-inch and one 
thirty-six-inch machine. Staats D. Tompkins, one of the 
most noted men of his Lime and place, owned three mills, 

"'Franklin B. Hough : Census of the State of New York for 
1855, (1857), pp. 188, 348, 419. 432. 

259 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

one in Chatham Centre, one near Chatham Four Corners 
and one in Rensselaer county. The mill in Chatham Cen- 
tre was considered a marvel, because it was the first 
double mill known in that section, having four beaters 
and two forty-eight-inch machines. It afterward became 
well known as the Bullis Mill. 

One of the most famous mills of the period was that 
built about 1845 by Samuel Hanna and Horace W. Peas- 
lee at Maiden Bridge. It was built to run on rag paper, 
but was not successful and was turned to straw. Peas- 
lee was a mechanical genius and brought out many new 
inventions. The mill was operated by the Rossmans of 
Stockport in 1900. Others active in the business at 
this time and later were : 'Plato B. Moore, in Marcellus 
Falls, the Smarts in Troy, the Rossmans and the Van 
DeCarrs in Stockport, Carpenter & Peaslee in Ancram, 
Edward Coventry in Stuyvesant Falls, Charles E. Brig- 
ham in Blue Stone, George H. 'Phillip, Horton & Harder, 
Samuel Rogers, J. D. Shufelt, Louis M. Payne and J. H. 
Garner in Chatham. 

Just prior to the civil war the demand for straw paper 
was not large and prices were small. For several years 
the business was at a rather low ebb. From 1862 to 1870 
there was a boom. Paper could not be produced fast 
enough to supply the demand and new mills were rushed 
up in a hurry while the old ones were enlarged. Prices 
went up as high as $1.10 per ream of ten pounds. The 
demand for rye straw was enormous and prices ranged 
from fifteen to thirty dollars a ton. But the fall came. 
Manufacturing was inflated, prices could not be main- 
tained and rye straw could no longer be bought cheap. 
That was the beginning of the end. In the early seventies 
the production of straw-paper was well established in the 
western states and it was not long before that section had 
the monopoly of that kind of paper-making. Locations, 
new mills, water-power, wages, raw material, markets and 
facilities generally were more favorable in the west than 
in the east. The small mills in New York gradually 
gave up the struggle and before the end of the century 
fully two-thirds of them had been dismantled or had been 

260 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

turned over to the manufacture of other kinds of paper. 224 
The Knowltons, who had been in Watertown, N. Y., 
from 1824, continued, in this period, to be factors in 
paper-manufacturing in northern New York. The orig- 
inal firm of Knowlton & Rice retired in 1854, but after a 





Illustrious Remington. 

few years of operation by other owners, the sons of the 
pioneer Knowlton, John C. and George W., Jr., bought 
the mill in 1861, added to it other properties and expanded 
the business to the extent that it has been known as the 
Kamargo Mill for more than a generation since. First 



^Columbia County at the End of the Century. (1900). Franklin 
Ellis: History of Columbia County, New York, (1878). The Paper 
Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, pp. 84-90. 

261 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

this mill, like most others, made wrapping, news, book, 
letter and other varieties, but in the course of time it was 
devoted entirely to writing paper and still later to cover 
paper and specialties. 

The Remingtons came into Jefferson county in 1854, 
Avhen Illustrious Remington and his sons, Hiram and 
Alfred D. Remington, who had been paper-manufacturers 
in Fayetteville, Onondaga county, leased and fitted up an 
old cotton-mill in Jewettsville with four rag engines and 
an eighty- four-inch Fourdrinier and made one ton of paper. 
Alfred D. Remington, a man of extraordinary business 
ability, gave a decided impulse to the industry on the 
Black river. In 1865 he organized the Remington Paper 
Company, which in a few years became one of the biggest 
plants in the country. Before the end of the century the 




B. B. Taggart. 
262 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

company was operating two paper-mills, three wood-pulp 
mills and a sulphite mill, and was making and using thirty 
tons of wood-pulp a day, all from spruce. Another Rem- 
ington mill was built on Sewall's island in 1862 and was 
many years operated by Charles and Hiram Remington, 
but after 1881 by Hira'm Remington & Son, under the 
name of the Watertown Paper Company, with a paper 
and a pulp mill. Charles R. Remington and his son 
Charles H. Remington, as the C. R. Remington & Son 
Company, built in 1882 a mill for news with a capacity of 
twenty-five tons daily and a mill for wood-pulp with a 
capacity of twelve tons daily. 

B. B. Taggart, born in 1831, bought an old mill in 
Pamclia, within the corporate limits of Watertown, in 
1866, and put in machinery for making news and manilla. 
This was the beginning of the Taggarts Brothers Com- 
pany, and they made rope papers and flour sacks. The 
concern went extensively into the manufacturing of paper 
bags. From the outset W. W. Taggart, a brother of B. 
B. Taggart, had part in the enterprise. Another mill 
was built at Felts Mills, and this was occupied by the 
Taggart Paper Company for making news. 

At the close of the century there were eleven paper- 
manufacturing companies in Jefferson county : Knowlton 
Brothers, the Remington Paper Company, the Taggarts 
Paper Company, the Watertown Paper Company, C. R. 
Remington & Son, the Ontario Paper Company and the 
Taggarts Brothers Company, in Watertown ; the Globe 
Paper Company and the Brownville Box & Paper Com- 
pany, in Brownville ; the Frontenac Paper Company and 
the St. Lawrence Paper Company, in Dexter. Knowlton 
Brothers, the Remington Paper Company and the Tag- 
garts Paper Company each had two mills. The full daily 
capacity of all these mills was three hundred and thirty- 
two thousand pounds, and all made news, except Knowl- 
ton Brothers, who made manilla colored paper. 

In this region the Remington Paper Company was the 
first to start a mill for grinding wood-pulp. This was 
in 1869, two years after the process had been introduced 
into the United States. Taggart Brothers followed with 

263 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




-^V 




Martin Nixon. 



a mill in 1872 and then, in addition, between 1882 and 
1889, the Knowltons and the Ontario Paper Company in 
Watertown, the Jefferson Paper Company of Black River, 
the St. Lawrence Paper Company of Dexter and ten 
other concerns in Brownville, Dexter, Carthage, Great 
Bend and Black River took up the work. All these were 
in operation in 1897 and their combined daily capacity 
was two hundred and thirty-four thousand pounds. Most 
of these mills were run by the paper-manufacturers to 
supply their own needs for pulp, but a limited pait of the 
product was sent away. 223 

Within Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania, there was 
much activity in paper-manufacturing in the years imme- 
diately following the middle of the century. Only a few 
of the names of the mill proprietors of this time and a 



* 25 John A. Haddock; History of Jefferson County, New York, 
(1895), pp. 202-210. The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, 
p. 45. 

264 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

little later need be enumerated here. Among them were 
Joseph Duckett, Charles Megargee, Sylvester Erwin, 
Joseph Stelwagen, Jacob D. Heft, Theodore Megargee, 
Charles Wells, Morris L. Keen, Sebastian Rudolph, John 
W. Dixon, E. R. Cope, Alfred D. Jessup, B. H. Moore, 
Henry Nixon, Martin Nixon, E. C. Warren, P. H. War- 
ren, John Lang, Casper Garrett and Alexander Balfour, 
without prejudice against others whose names have been 
passed by. On the Crum, Darby, Mill and Pennypack 
creeks were numerous mills, but nearly all passed away 
before the end of the century. 

One of the famous mills on the Wissahickon creek in 
this period was that with which the Megargees were long 
identified. The house of Charles Megargee was estab- 
lished in 1830 and was long one of the most flourishing 
concerns in the business. The Megargee Wissahickon 
mill was one of the finest of its time. It had a long and 
honorable career, passing through many hands before it 
came into the possession of the Megargees, about 1850, 




William H. Nixon. 
265 



PAP ER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and it was operated by them until 1884, when it was 
taken by the municipal park commission and torn down. 

For more than two generations the Nixons had a large 
part in paper-manufacturing in and about Philadelphia. 
They naturally came by their disposition to the industry 
by line of inheritance. Martin Nixon was a son of Daniel 
Adams Nixon and his mother was Susanna Rittenhouse 
daughter of Martin Rittenhouse who was of the famous 
Rittenhouse family of paper manufacturers, being in the 
fourth generation from William Rittenhouse, the first 
American paper-maker, in 1690. Martin Nixon, thus by 
heredity a paper-maker, began work in the early part of 
the century. For some years, before and after 1839, he 
owned and operated a noted Manayunk mill, the Eckstein, 
built and first operated by Samuel Eckstein. Writing and 
sugar-loaf papers were there made and the mill continued 
in existence until well toward the end of the century. 

A half century later Martin Nixon and his nephew 
William H. Nixon established the firm of Martin & Wm. H. 
Nixon which was incorporated in 1888. Previous to that 
time they had been located at Manayunk where they had 
the first building of what afterward became the big plant 
of the Flat Rock Mills of contemporaneous times. Fei- 
nour & Nixon were on this Manayunk site from 1844 and 
it was there that straw-pulp was made in 1854 and soda- 
pulp first used about ten years later. 226 

Most of the mills of this and earlier date advertised 
themselves with elaborately engraved trade-marks that 
were attached to each bundle of paper sent out. That of 
the Humphreysville mill in Connecticut has been pictured 
on another page of this book. 227 That of the McDowell 
mill in Philadelphia was another good example of its kind. 
It was used in 1825 and after, and probably before. Jo- 
seph McDowell, first of the name in the industry, was 
born in 1791 and learned the trade of making paper in 
New London Cross Roads, Chester county, Penn. 
He became one of the foremost manufacturers of paper 
in Pennsylvania, having first a mill on the Pennypack 

228 See page 223 and 228, ante. 
227 See page 141, ante. 

266 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

creek, Montgomery county, and then one in Manayunk 
where he made writing-paper until the mill was burned in 
1858. F. W. McDowell, son of Joseph McDowell, learned 
the trade in the mill of his father and during his long life 
was active in the business in Philadelphia, connected with 
the Megargees and Jessup & Moore. In the third genera- 
tion, Charles McDowell continued the business, 1916, in 
two mills where his grandfather began. 

Paper-manufacturing in the southern states never at- 
tained great importance. Prior to the civil war the indus- 
try there did not exist much more than merely hopefully. 
Scattered mills were built and run in a desultory way in 








A Paper-mill Trade-mark of 1825. 
267 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and else- 
where, as has been noted on preceding pages of this his- 
tory, but that was about all. 228 In 1847 the publishers of 
The New Orleans Bulletin announced that they were using 
paper manufactured by themselves at a "mill in the third 
municipality," which they then believed was the only suc- 
cessful attempt to manufacture paper as far south as 




Joseph McDowell. 



Louisiana." But the United States census of 1850 did 
not find this mill. Two mills were then working in Georgia. 
The editor of The Savannah Republican, commenting upon 
the fact, said that a few years before he had despaired of 
living long enough to see such an achievement. A Georgia 
man, writing in 1846, called attention to the need of a 



See page 168, ante. 



268 



BEFORE AND DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

paper-mill in that section. He ,said that there was then 
no mill in Georgia or Alabama, the paper consumed in 
those states being procured from the north, with the ex- 
ception of a small portion supplied by two mills in Green- 
ville, S. C., which mills were working under the disadvan- 
tage of being obliged to bring in their raw materials and 
then to transport out to the market their manufactured 
paper, a distance of two hundred miles, by wagon. 228 

Just before the war William S. Whiteman, third of the 
name, who had been active in paper-making in Tennessee, 
following his father and his grandfather, built another 
mill in the old Stone Fort, near Manchester. One of 
Whiteman mills was operated successfully on news, book, 
manilla and wrapping until the fall of Fort Donelson in 
1862. Throughout the war it never stopped running, night 
or day or Sunday, except to clean the boilers. Its product, 
the largest of any mill in the south, was shipped to every 
point that could be reached outside the state. Confederate 
bank notes and other government securities were printed 
on paper there made. 

When the war broke out in 1861 there were fifteen 
mills in the states that seceded. They produced seventy- 
five thousand pounds of paper daily while the daily con- 
sumption in that part of the country was over one hundred 
and fifty thousand pounds, fully one half the supply being 
drawn from Europe and from mills of the west. An entire 
suspension of newspaper publishing was at once imminent 
and the burning of the mill in Augusta, Ga., in 1863, the 
largest in the south, intensified the seriousness of the situ- 
ation. Other paper mills of the period were located in 
Richmond, Va., one in South Carolina, probably at Bath; 
and one in Marietta, Ga., operated by James Byrd, an 
uncle of William S. Whiteman, of Nashville. As wires 
and felts were not manufactured they were brought 
through the lines by blockade runners, being hauled in 
wagons through the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky, 
Tennessee and Georgia. 230 

^Freeman Hunt : The Merchants Magazine, xv, p. 416. 
230 R. A. Halley: Paper Making in Tennessee, ix, (1904), p. 215. 
The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897. 

269 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 

In the Years Following the Civil War — A Unique 
Directory of 1864 — Growth of the Industry in 
Ohio — Futile Attempts to Start Paper-Making 
in Utah — Founding the Industry in the North- 
West — Rapid Advancement in Holyoke, Massa- 
chusetts — Some Amazing Prices of that Period 

IN the prosperity that followed the civil war and held 
the country for a decade paper-manufacturing had its 
share. For four years the civil war was, on the whole, a 
retardant force, for the southern market for paper was 
cut off, although selling prices were high, and the cost 
of raw material increased more proportionately. But 
change came quick after peace and improvement was de- 
cided and on large scale. Old mills were expanded, im- 
proved machinery and methods were introduced and new 
mills on a scale heretofore unthought of were built. Paper 
commanded high prices though the demand was shifting, 
now strong, now weak, but on the whole good. Progres- 
sion toward larger establishments, business on an ex- 
tensive scale, and concentration of manufacturing in 
certain favorable localities which had started during the 
preceding generation had become a marked feature of 
the period. Particular lines of development that were to 
dominate the industry until into the next century were 
clearly manifest and all else was giving way to this move- 
ment. Many things contributed to bring on this notable 
change in the business as a whole. Machinery had dis- 
olaced the old hand process that, however admirable in 

270 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



results, was too slow for modern needs. New materials, 
straw, manilla and wood, had come in, or were about to 
come in, to help out the rag situation. Capital was re- 
covering from the financial panics and was seeking in- 
vestment. Foreign imports had not increased in propor- 
tion to the increase in population and home needs. 
Transportation facilities, which had already favorably 
affected the business were now substantial factors in it. 
More than ever before it was now possible, as well as 
desirable, to group mills in localities where water power, 
ready availability of raw material and accessibility to 
markets were prime considerations. Already for these 
reasons Berkshire county in Massachusetts, Hartford 
county in Connecticut, Philadelphia, Chester and Dela- 
ware counties in Pennsylvania, and other places, were 
paper-manufacturing centers of importance and were 
growing. Jefferson, Niagara and Columbia counties in 
New York, Holyoke in Massachusetts, the Miami valley 
in Ohio, and Indiana, and Wisconsin, were about to 
be added to the list of places where branches of the in- 
dustry should be concentrated with many mills and big 
mills and on an unprecedented scale of production. The 
really great age of American paper-manufacturing was in 
sight although not fully to appear for half a century. 

According to the census of 1860 there were five hundred 
and fifty-five paper mills in twenty-four states : Maine, 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachussetts, Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, South 
Carolina, North Carolina and California. In New 
England were two hundred and four mills ; in the middle 
states, two hundred and seventy-three; in the western 
■ states, fifty-three ; in the southern states, twenty-four, and 
in California, one. These mills had a capital of 
$14,052,683, employed six thousand five hundred and 
nineteen males and four thousand three hundred and 
ninety-two females and had an annual product of 
$21,216,802 which was an increase of more than one hun- 

271 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

dred per cent, upon the product in 1850. Of the total 
product, amounting to 253,778,240 pounds, printing paper 
was 131,508,000 pounds, writing 22,268,000 pounds, wrap- 
ping 33,379 tons, and lesser quantities of colored, bank- 
note, wall paper, straw board and other specialties. New 
England produced to the value of $10,502,069, nearly 
one half of the whole and more than was produced in the 
entire United States in 1850. Massachusetts alone re- 
ported a value of $6,170,127 as against $7,908,437 for the 
five middle states. About sixty-five per cent, of the entire 
amount of paper-stock came from domestic rags and 
twelve per cent, from cotton waste, rope and bagging. 
The remainder was imported, the value of rags imported 
for 1860 being $1,540,224, an advance of $529,789 from 
1854 and of $791,517 from 1850. The paper product was 
greater in quantity than that made either in Great Britain 
or France and the consumption greater than the consump- 
tion in both those countries combined. 

A unique directory was made in 1864 by W. A. Brewer 
of New York city. It was simply a specially prepared 
blank book in which the information was written. Man- 
uscript copies of it were sold to subscribers and it was 
the first attempt at a directory in this field. The title was : 
Catalogue of Paper Manufacturers in the United States, 
Territories, Canada, etc., with the Statistics of the Mills, 
Compiled from Various Sources, 1864. A preface and a 
table of contents preceded the list of mills which were ar- 
ranged by states. Each page was divided into eleven 
columns the headings of which were: names of mills and 
proprietors or agents ; town or city where located ; de- 
scription of paper manufactured; engines, running time, 
cylinders, Fourdrinier machines ; investment or capital 
employed in lands, buildings, machinery, etc; value of 
annual product ; number of hands employed ; remarks. In 
the preface, under date of May, 1864, Mr. Brewer said: 

"A manuscript catalogue in the possession of a 
manufacturer formed the basis of this. But the 
compiler has been able to correct and make additions 
to the addresses of mills in about seventy instances, 

272 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



and, by personal interviews and correspondence with 
the proprietors of about three hundred mills, the sta- 
tistics have been corrected and added to in about five 
hundred instances. The columns denoting the invest- 
ment in lands, buildings and machinery and the value 
of annual product constitute an original feature, so 
that while the present work cannot be supposed to be 
entirely perfect it may be fairly considered to be the 
most accurate catalogue of paper manufacturers and 
mills now extant." 

Despite its many inaccuracies and short-comings this 
book, undoubtedly, then served its purpose for the trade 
very well indeed and to-day it is exceedingly interesting 
and valuable as an historical document. Substantially it 
presents an account of the industry at the close of the 
civil war, such as could not now be derived from any 
other sources. According to Mr. Brewer there were then 
in the United States, paper-manufacturing concerns to 
the number of eight hundred and thirty-five, distributed 
as follows : Maine, sixteen ; New Hampshire, thirty-one ; 
Vermont, thirty-five ; Massachusetts, one hundred and 
seventeen ; Connecticut, seventy-eight ; New York, two 
hundred and twenty-three ; New Jersey, sixty -three ; 
Delaware, three ; Pennsylvania, one hundred and twenty- 
seven ; Maryland, thirty-eight ; Virginia, twelve ; North 
Carolina, two ; South Carolina, four ; Georgia, two ; Ten- 
nessee, five ; Kentucky, two ; Ohio, thirty-four ; Michigan, 
seven ; Indiana, fifteen ; Illlinois, fifteen ; Wisconsin, 
fifteen ; Minnesota, one. 

In Maine the largest concern was Grant, Warren & Co., 
which was reported as having three Fourdrinier machines, 
the largest sixty-eight inches, a capital of $100,000, an 
annual product of $40,000 and one hundred employees. 
A. C. Denison & Co. was listed with $100,000 capital and 
$150,000 annual output. Other concerns were in 
Mechanic Falls, Gardiner, Vassalboro, Hampden, South 
Orrington, Waterville, Portland, Belfast and Bloomfield. 
Among them were Drake, Dwinal & Co., Richards & 
Hoskins, James Freeman & Co., George F. White & Co., 
Wm. Russell & Son and J. & B. Crosby & Co., strangely 

273 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

unfamiliar names a half century later. In New Hamp- 
shire there were mills in Manchester, Exeter, Newmarket, 
Bennington, Claremont, Alstead, Holderness, Bristol, 
Franklin, Peterboro, Conway, Brentwood and Haverhill. 
Only five of these thirteen places had mills fifty years 
later. Holderness, for example, which then had seven 
mills, was not on the paper-trade map in 1916. The names 
of all the thirty concerns listed had disappeared from the 
industry by that time. 

Asa Low in Bradford was the leading manufacturer in 
Vermont. He had ten engines and three cylinder ma- 
chines, thirty-two, thirty-four and forty-two inches wide 
and he made wrapping and printing papers. One lone 
Fourdrinier in the state was in the mill of G. Benton & 
Sons, Bennington, who had a capital of $40,000, employed 
thirty-six hands and annually produced paper to the value 
of $60,000. 

In the Massachusetts list of one hundred and seventeen 
firms we come upon names that were conspicuous in the 
annals down to much later times and some of them even 
into the opening years of the twentieth century : Crehore, 
Bird, Tileston, Rice, Hollingsworth, Russell, Curtis, 
Crocker, Burbank, Wheelwright, Smith, Parsons, South- 
worth, Greenleaf, Crane, Carson, Whitney, Warren, 
Gould and Roberts. And the principal places listed — 
Newton Lower Falls, Walpole, Lawrence, Fitchburg, 
South Hadley Falls, Dalton, Lee, Watertown, Russell, 
Waltham, Westfield, North Leominster, Mittineague and 
Holyoke showed that the industry in this state had not 
abandoned its earlier homes, in those five decades, even 
though it had also over-flowed into other localities. All 
these Massachusetts mills seem to have been busy estab- 
lishments. Most of them were credited with making full 
time while some of them were running twelve, fourteen, 
fifteen and sixteen hours a day. 

In Connecticut the leading mills were in Manchester, 
Norwich, Hartford, East Hartford, Windsor Locks, 
South Manchester and Unionville and the leading manu- 
facturers were the Chelsea Manufacturing Company, N. 

274 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



H. Hubbard & Co., George Bunce & Co., Boswell, Keeney 
& Co., W. & E. Bunce & Sons, Goodwin & Sheldon, 
Persee & Brooks, C. H. Dexter, Converse, Chapman & 
Burbank, Platner & Porter, and Case Brothers. 

In New York state many of the mills reported were 
engaged in making paper from straw, especially in Colum- 
bia county where, in the town of Chatham alone, there 
were fourteen mills. Troy had six manufacturers, Milton 
five, Ballston Spa six, Little Falls seven and Watertown 
three. Nearly all the machines used were of the cylinder 
type, only seventeen Fourdriniers being reported for the 
state. Among the products were writing, straw-wrapping, 
strawboards, card, bonnet-boards and printings. 

Paper-mills in New Jersey were then in Morristown, 
Chatham, Bloomfield, Millburn, Springfield, New Pros- 
pect, Belleville and Trenton, only Morristown, Bloomfield 
and Millburn having lasted out the century as paper- 
manufacturing localities and that too in minor rank. 
Singularly, with less than one-third the number of firms 
in the business, New Jersey had nearly as many Four- 
driniers at work as New York, thirteen as against seven- 
teen ; but still most of the machines were cylinders. 

The three concerns listed in Delaware were Curtis & 
Brother and R. Lysle in Newark and Jessup & Moore in 
Wilmington, but that omitted the ancient Sunny Dale mill 
of Francis Tempest in Beaver Valley. The Curtis, the 
Jessup & Moore and the Sunny Dale establishments have 
endured until 1916. In Maryland the majority of the 
mills were in Elkton, Union Meeting House and Freeland. 

Only the names of the one hundred and twenty-seven 
firms in Pennsylvania were given, and their locations. 
Foremost among these were J. M. Dowdie, Thomas K. 
Amies, J. Duckett, J. M. Willcox & Co., E. C. & P. H. 
Warren, Joseph Stilwagon and Martin C. Nixon of 
Philadelphia ; Givins & Brown, Robinson & Co., W. B. 
Mullen and S. & I. Lagg of Papertown; S. B. & C. P. 
Markle and S. & P. Markle of West Newton; Wolff & 
Heyser, William & J. Heyser, Jacob Heyser, Lambert & 
Hubert and Stauffer, Strickles & Co. in Chambersburg ; 

275 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




D. E. Mead. 



J. Howard Lewis and 



Matthews in Darby; Kempton 



& Mullin and Mullin & Son in Mt. Holly Springs ; Martin 
Nixon, Joseph Duckett and Finour & Nixon in Manayunk. 
This list, both as to names of firms and localities, is quite 
as noteworthy for its omissions as for those included in it. 

In Ohio paper-making had been going on slowly since 
its beginning before the middle of the century, but the 
industry there did not assume large proportions until 
about the time of the civil war and after. In the Miami 
valley, paper was made in one lone mill about 1840. Lo- 
cated on the Miami river near Hamilton it was known 
by the name of its owner and operator, Thomas Graham. 
The mill was run by water-power and had a varied prod- 
uct, ruled and unruled writing, printing, white and blue 
lined bonnet boards, and wrappings. 

In 1848 the Dayton Paper Mills were started by Ellis, 
Claflin & Co. In 1856, W. A. Weston, J. L. Weston and 

276 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



D. E.Mead, as Weston & Mead, bought the property which, 
as time went on, was owned by Mead & Weston, Mead & 
Nixon, the Mead & Nixon Paper Company and the Mead 
Paper Company, Colonel Mead being in all these years 
the dominant spirit in the business until his death in 1891. 
Charles D. Mead succeeded his father and the concern, 
until after 1900, operated the mills in Dayton and pulp 
and paper mills in Chillicothe. For years the Dayton mill 
manufactured news, but the later product was book paper. 
It was one of the first mills in the west to make chemical 
wood pulp. In 1900, a soda pulp mill was run in connec- 
tion with the Chillicothe plant. 

A. E. Harding with George H. Irwin and Abram Upp, 
under the name of Harding, Irwin & Co., built a mill, 
which they called the Excello, on the Erie canal near 
Middletown, equipped it with a sixty-two inch machine 
and started running in November, 1865, making, they 




A. E. Harding. 
277 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




Thomas Beckett. 



claimed, the first writing paper west of the Allegheny 
mountains. In 1873 the Harding Paper Company was 
organized and a mill built in Franklin. With the usual 
accompaniment of disasters by fire these mills continued 
to be operated by the Harding Paper Company, making 
writing, until in the next century when (1916) they were 
a division of the American Writing Paper Company. 

In Dayton a board mill was built in 1863 by William 
Clarke and Calvin L. Hawes — the Clarke & Hawes Com- 
pany and, in 1872, after the death of Mr. Clarke, the C. 
L. Hawes Company. It had four machines capable of 
producing, annually, about one thousand and two hundred 
tons, valued at $90,000. Forty years later, having be- 
come part of the American Straw Board Company, it was 
equipped with eight machines and nineteen engines and 
had a capacity of eight-five thousand pounds in twenty- 
four hours ; but it was idle. 

278 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



William Beckett and Thomas P. Rigdon started a mill 
in Hamilton, in 1849, where the first Fourdrinier in Ohio 
was put in. Adam Laurie was the manager and in 1854 
he secured an interest in the concern which became 
Beckett & Laurie. Thomas Beckett and Adam Laurie Jr. 
entered the firm in 1885 and two years later the Laurie 
interests were purchased by the Becketts and the Beckett 
Paper Company was incorporated, so remaining into the 
next century. 

Other enterprises in the Miami Valley during the last 
half of the century were : that of Rutledge & Co., built in 
Dayton, before the war, afterward the property of the 
Columbia Straw Company ; the Levis of Dayton ; the 
Nixon paper and bag factory of Dayton and Richmond, 
Ind. ; the George H. Friend mills in Lockland and Car- 
rollton ; the William Levis mill in Miamisburg, after 1890 




Adam Laurie. 
279 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

owned by the Friend Paper Company ; the second Levis 
mill in Miamisburg, the beginning of the Ohio Paper Com- 
pany; the Franklin Paper Company, the Friend and 
Forgy Paper Company, and the Eagle Paper Company of 
Franklin; the Erwin, McGuire and Kline mill and the 
Snider mills in Hamilton, 1853-93; the Wrenn Paper 
Company, the Wardlow-Thomas Paper Company, the 
Oglesby Paper Company, the Tytus Paper Company, the 
Colin Gardner Paper Company and the Middletown Pa- 
per Company of Middletown ; the Champion Coated 
Paper Mills which, started in 1895 by Peter G. Thomson, 
became, in a few years, the most imposing establishment 
of its kind in the country. And the list could be further 
extended without exhausting the record. Some of these 
mills had short and troublesome existence ; others became 
substantial and profitable, the main stay of the industry 
in this region in contemporaneous times. 231 

The first known mill in Wisconsin was built in 1846 or 
1848 by Ludington & Garland in Milwaukee. It was a 
four-story brick structure that cost $10,000, contained two 
engines and a cylinder machine, was operated by steam 
and ran on printing and wrapping. In 1849 the mill was 
owned by D. Cameron who had ten employees with a pay 
roll of forty dollars a week and produced weekly about 
one hundred and ten reams of paper, sufficient, it was 
claimed, "to supply the entire press of the state," besides 
sending some to the market in Chicago. After a few years 
this mill was dismantled, the machinery being sold to 
Noonan & McNab, who build a new mill at Humboldt. 
This was equipped with two engines and a forty-two-inch 
cylinder, and was operated until about 1867. 

Ernest Prieger built a mill in 1855 on the Menomonee 
river ; it lasted for nearly twenty years, being at one time 
owned by Noonan & McNab. Another mill was built in 
Milwaukee in 1864 by Alexander Mills, and was run for 
about two years when it was destroyed by an explosion. 



281 Stephen D. Cone; Concise History of Hamilton, Ohio, (1901), 
I., 386, 397; II., 283-90, 332. The Paper Trade Journal, October 
16, 1897, pp. 92-96. 

280 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



In the Fox river region Appleton had its first mill in 
1853 built by the two Richmond brothers and run on 
wrapping until it was burned in 1860. About the same 
time the Kehlors built a mill in Waterford, but the plant 
was abandoned later. At Beloit, in 1855, Wright, Merrill 
& Newcombe erected a mill with two engines and a forty- 
two-inch cylinder to make news. This was afterward 
owned by the Rocky River Paper Company. A second 
mill was built at Beloit in 1857. Another mill was created 
by Merrill out of a saw-mill and these three mills finally 
became the property of the Beloit Straw Board Company. 
Another early concern in Beloit was F. N. Davis & Co., 
who ran a mill on specialties, one of which was a rye straw- 
board for floor covering. In Whitewater, between 1857 
and 1860, J. H. Crombie built a mill and for ten years 
operated it on printing and tea papers, its daily capacity 
being three and one-half tons. Denison & Turner were 
later owners of this mill, increasing its capacity and de- 
voting it to straw wrapping. Before 1872 or thereabout, 
other manufacturers were J. L. Mathers in Sparta and 
George Hunter and Nightingale, Bosworth & Co. in Fond 
du Lac. Two pulp mills were started in Appleton, one 
by Bradner Smith & Co. of Chicago and the other by the 
Ames Wood Pulp Company. Together they had a daily 
output of eight thousand pounds of dry pulp which was a 
large product for that time. 

The first mill in Neenah was built in 1865-66 by a small 
stock company composed of Hiram and Edward Smith, 
Dr. N. S. Robinson, John Jamison, Moses Hooper and 
Nathan Cobb. The building that was used was known as 
"the old red Neenah mill" and manufacturing was carried 
on successfully under different management for nearly 
ten years. Colonel Haynes, one of the pioneer paper- 
makers of Wisconsin, controlled the mill, which ultimately 
came into possession of the Kimberly & Clark Company. 
At first this mill made from two thousand five hundred to 
three thousand pounds of paper a day. In 1870 the Chi- 
cago Tribune noted that the company "received an order 
for ten tons of paper for the Tribune, made the order and 

281 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 




Thomas Howard. 



shipped it inside of sixty hours." These were the begin- 
nings, small, indeed, of paper-manufacturing in Wiscon- 
sin. They bear little comparison to the status to which 
the industry attained before the end of the century. 232 

In November, 1851, the first attempt to build a paper-mill 
in Utah was made. This project was started on Mill creek 
near Salt Lake city by Thomas Howard and Sydney Rob- 
erts, but was abandoned in a few months, after the mill 
race and the pit for the water-wheel had been built. In 
the following year Howard and Thomas Hollis arranged 
with Brigham Young to utilize machinery that had been 
intended for a beet sugar factory. They converted the 



232 Publius V. Lawson : Paper-Making in Wisconsin. In Pro- 
ceedings of the State Historical Society for Wisconsin, (1909), pp. 
273-280. The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 37. 

282 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



beet grinder into an eighty-pound rag-engine and availed 
themselves of water-power on Temple Block in Salt Lake 
city. Years afterward Mr. Howard wrote the story of 
their operations. 233 

In June, 1854, they were able to begin the manufacture 
of paper by hand, the first to be made west of the Missouri 
river. But the experiment lasted only six months, for the 
sugar factory demanded its machinery and the paper-mill 
was closed. In 1860 Brigham Young purchased a cylinder 
machine and Howard was engaged to convert the old 
sugar-mill into a paper-mill where he began making paper 
by machinery in the following year. In 1863 this mill was 
succeeded by the Granite mill built near Salt Lake City 
and equipped with a Fourdriner and other modern 
machinery. The Granite mill continued operations until 
1893 when it was burned. 

In the years immediately following the civil war paper 
manufacturing in Holyoke, Mass., advanced rapidly. 
Charles O. Chapin and James Kirkham organized the 
Riverside Paper Company in 1866 and in the following 
year built a mill, which, after 1871, was owned by L. J. 
Powers and J. H. Appleton. In 1892 a second mill was 
added to the plant and subsequently a third. The Frank- 
lin Paper Company, also organized in 1866, had Calvin 
Taft as president, and his son-in-law, James H. Newton, 
as treasurer and agent. It was run on collar-paper, but 
after paper collars went out of fashion it made bristol 
board. The Albion Paper Company was organized in 

1869 and purchased the mill of the Hampden Paper Com- 
pany, built in 1862 by the Newton Brothers and run by 
them on collar-paper. Afterward, in 1878 and in 1879, 
the Albion Company built new mills larger and better 
equipped, to run on book and later on writing. The 
Union Paper Manufacturing Company was organized in 

1870 by Henry and Edward Dickinson, J. E. Taylor and 
D. D. Warren. The company began work in the mill 
which they purchased from the Bemis Paper Company, 
an older concern, and continued in business until 1888, 



The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 106. 
283 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

when it became the Connecticut River Paper Company. 
Jared Beebe started in business in 1871 as the Hampden 
Paper Company, making fine writing. Presently he was 
joined by George B. Holbrook under the firm name of 
Beebe & Holbrook, the business being incorporated in 
1878, after the death of Mr. Beebe in 1876, with Mr. Hol- 
brook as president and treasurer. 

Other Holyoke concerns in the closing quarter of the 
century were the Chemical Paper Company, 1880; the 
Nonotuck Paper Company, 1880 ; the George R. Dickinson 
Paper Company, 1882 ; the George C. Gill Company, 1891 ; 
the Norman Paper Company, 1891 ; the Linden Paper 
Company, 1892 ; the Winona Paper Company, 1892 ; the 
Syms & Dudley Company, and Newton & Ramage, 1873, 
which was succeeded by the Newton Paper Company in 
1876. Some of the noteworthy mills of this period were 
the Wauregan, built by J. N. Newton in 1879 ; the Valley, 
built in 1864, for the Valley Paper Company, founded by 
David M. Butterfield ; the Holyoke manilla, managed, 
after 1875, by Robertson, Black & Co. ; the Excelsior, built 
in 1872, by D. H. & J. C. Newton, and sold to J. B. War- 
ren, R. C. Dickinson, George R. Dickinson and A. N. Mayo. 
Holyoke had a pulp mill in 1876 owned by the Connecti- 
cut River Pulp Mill Company, which made four tons of 
soda pulp a day. 

In 1873 Holyoke, twenty years after the first mill was 
built there, had fifteen mills operated by fourteen concerns. 
The daily capacity of these mills was forty-eight and one- 
half tons. Twenty-five years later, 1897, the "paper city" 
had twenty-one concerns operating twenty-six mills with 
a daily capacity of three hundred and seventeen tons. In 
1873 the fifteen mills had three cylinder machines and 
sixteen Fourdriniers. In 1897 the twenty-six mills had 
six cylinders and fifty-three Fourdriniers. To carry the 
comparison still further, in 1916, sixty-three years after 
the first Parsons mill, Holyoke had twenty-seven mills, 
operated by twenty-two concerns. In these mills there 
were six cylinders and fifty Fourdriniers. The daily ca- 
pacity of these mills was four hundred and fifty tons, and 

284 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



their product, while largely writing, envelope, book, bond, 
linen and ledger, included besides nearly every conceivable 
kind of paper, except news and straw board. 

Heavy increase in the consumption of paper, especially 
all kinds of book and news, was a feature of two or three 
decades immediately preceding the civil war, yet Ameri- 
can manufacturers were able mostly to meet the demand. 
The protective policy of the national government which 
had placed duties on paper, changeable, it is true, but gen- 
erally high, had worked to the exclusion of importations 
except French writing papers, and that notwithstanding 
capital and labor were cheaper in Europe than in this 
country. In 1789 the duty was seven and one-half per 
cent, ad valorem; in 1816, thirty per cent. ; in 1828, from 
ten to twenty cents a pound ; between 1825 and 1845, re- 
duced ; in 1846, thirty per cent. ; in 1857, twenty-four per 
cent. ; in 1862, thirty per cent. Rags generally had always 
been admitted free of duty. 

In 1854 there was a rise of two and one-half cents a 
pound for news. Publishers of newspapers were dis- 
mayed, and, as was the case, more than sixty years later — 
in 1916 — they complained loudly against the increased 
price and the scarcity. Many of them felt compelled to 
raise their price or reduce the size of their papers. The 
Neiv York Tribune reduced to its former size ; The New 
York Sun reduced size : The Philadelphia Evening Regis- 
ter discontinued publication. At that time publishers of 
The New York Times protested that it was costing them 
sixty thousand dollars a year for paper, and The New 
York Journal of Commerce was paying from forty thou- 
sand dollars to fifty thousand dollars a year. 

Naturally the rise in prices attracted fresh capital into 
the business. New mills and big mills were built and the 
old mills were expanded ; for a time even they were run 
night and day, a custom that had not before been known. 
Soon business was overdone, the market was overstocked, 
and a feverish competition set in that sent prices tumbling 
down below the point of profit. Often actual loss resulted 
and not a few mills were compelled to close. The situa- 

285 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

tion became serious and various plans were proposed to 
meet it. Manufacturers of fine writing met in Pittsfield, 
Mass., in February, 1861, representatives of twenty-one 
of the thirty-six mills in the country being present. A 
protective association was formed and it was decided that 
for three months from the first of March production 
should be curtailed one-third. But the firing upon Fort 
Sumter in April changed everything in the twinkling of 
an eye. From that time on prices went up and up, and 
the mills had plenty to do. 

Early in 1862 ordinary printing paper was selling for 
nine cents and eight cents net cash a pound. Manufac- 
turers agreed to increase the price, with the result that 
news went to seventeen cents cash and twenty-two cents 
before the end of the year. Manufacturers of fine writing 
took similar action and raised prices from thirteen and 
fourteen cents to seventeen cents for fine writing and from 
fifteen to twenty-five cents for letter and note paper. 
Within a few months all writing papers were forty cents 
a pound and No. 1 printing thirty cents. In 1864 news 
was selling for twenty-eight cents and fine book for forty- 
five cents. Presently news fell off eight cents a pound 
and some contracts were made at eighteen cents, a price 
that was considered heart-breakingly low. But compare 
that with 1916 prices for news. Then Congress was 
memorialized to remove the duty on paper. And how 
much that sounds like 1916. Stock was scarce. Waste 
paper commanded eight cents a pound and thousands of 
tons of old books and newspapers, school and account 
books, correspondence and business papers went to the 
mills. And still the price of white paper kept well up. 

In 1863 William Platner, of Platner & Porter, of Union- 
ville, Conn., drew up a carefully itemized estimate of the 
cost of running a mill to make eighteen hundred pounds 
of writing paper a day. The total was $528.26, and from 
this it appeared that the average cost of paper at the mill 
at that time was twenty-nine and one-half cents per pound, 
while the paper was bringing from forty to fifty cents. 234 



The Paper Trade Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 114. 
286 



AN ERA OF PROSPERITY 



Prices in New York for January, 1865, according to a 
list then published, were : 

Note paper, first class 55 to 60 cents 

Note paper, good 50 to 55 " 

Note paper, common 45 to 50 " 

Letters and foolscaps, first class 50 to 55 " 

Letters and foolscaps, second class 45 to 50 " 

Letters and foolscaps, common 40 to 45 " 

Flat caps and folios, first class 45 to 48 " 

Flat caps and folios, second class 40 to 44 " 

Flat caps and folios, common 35 to 40 " 

Common news, straw, etc 20 to 22 " 

Good news, rag 22 to 25 " 

Fair white book 25 to 28 " 

Extra book 28 to 32 " 

Sized and calendered book 30 to 33 " 

Extra sized and calendered book 35 to 40 " 

Manilla wrapping 18 to 20 " 

In 1866 fine book paper, which could have been bought 
before the war for sixteen cents a pound on six months' 
time, had risen to forty cents cash. Publishing houses 
of New York and Boston bought in the European mar- 
kets because they could save twenty-five per cent. The 
Harper Brothers imported from Belgium and Ticknor & 
Fields, of Boston, from England. 

A card issued in 1867 gave ream prices as follows : 

14 lb. cap $6.30 $5.95 

12 " cap and letter 5.40 5.10 

10 M cap and letter..... 4.50 4.25 

9 " letter 4.05 3.83>4 

8 " letter 3.60 3.40 

7 " letter 3.15 2.97^ 

6 " note and bath 3.00 2.85 

5 " note and bath 2.50 2.37^ 

4 " note and bath 2.00 1.90 

5 " octavo 2.75 2.62J4 

3J4 " octavo 2.11 2.03 

2% " billet 1.52 1.46 

287 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

MODERN EXPANSION 

Mills Increased in Number and in Size in All Parts 
of the United States — Machinery Expansion — 
The Rise of Big Corporations — New Men, New 
Methods and New Accomplishments — Growth 
of Foreign Trade — Exporting is Begun in Com- 
petition for the Markets of the World 

IN contemporaneous times several things stand out con- 
spicuously in the history of the paper industry. Dur- 
ing the closing years of the last and the opening years 
of the present century there was remarkable expansion 
in many ways. Bigger mills were built, bigger and better 
machinery put into them and improved methods of manu- 
facture introduced. The industry was established in new 
places and, more than ever before, was concentrated in 
particular localities on large scale. 

By the perfecting of the wood-pulp processes, an over- 
whelming increase in output resulted and a corresponding 
demand for paper was developed. Also wood-pulp made 
possible the multiplying of the kinds of paper and the 
manufactures therefrom to an extent that could not have 
been imagined a half century before. Pulp-making be- 
came almost an independent branch of the industry, ex- 
panding into a business of great dimensions and serving 
many lines of manufacture quite aside from that of purely 
paper making. Foreign trade began to be a matter for 
serious consideration. Exports, which in the past had been 
almost negligible, assumed encouraging proportions. 

A clear idea of the steady and substantial growth of the 
industry in the years immediately following the close of 

288 



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necf Bad 



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-' . : . . : - : :7 -.-..-. ■ : - --. 



.'-'_-.-. ' _ . '...-.'■ . : 



•: ---. - ---. =r : ". i r ::, "J-L i . - 

s- : : : -•• : 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

product $57,366,860. These mills were in twenty-nine 
states and the District of Columbia. Out of the total 
number New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Con- 
necticut, in the order named, had the largest number, 
four hundred and seven, with annual production of $33,- 
405,937. Ohio came next with sixty mills and production 
value of $5,108,194. The total daily capacity in tons for 
1881 was: all kinds of paper, 2,266, chemical fibre, 1,297, 
ground wood, 3,844. For 1897-8, the totals in tons were : 
paper 6,675, chemical fibre, 1,725, ground wood, 3,225. 

In 1890 there was, by the census returns, a drop in 
the number of establishments reported, to six hundred and 
forty-nine in thirty-one states and territories. But, in a 
lesser number of mills than in 1870, more capital was in- 
vested, more people were employed and the value of prod- 
uct was larger, the figures being: capital, $89,829,540; 
employees, 31,050; product, $78,937,184. This showed 
expansion of the business as a whole and a greater expan- 
sion in the average per individual establishment. The 
bulk of the industry was in New York, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania and Ohio in the order named, with three 
hundred and thirty-five establishments and annual product 
$49,767,674. Connecticut came fifth in the list with forty- 
two mills and annual product of $3,556,257. Oregon and 
West Virginia each had two establishments and Kansas, 
Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri and Utah one each. 

In the census of 1900, seven hundred and sixty-three 
establishments, reported for 1899, had a capital of $167,- 
507,713, wage earners, 49,646, and value of annual product, 
$127,326,162, an increase of nearly eighty-seven per cent, 
in capital invested and over sixty per cent, in value of 
annual product since 1889. At the same time twenty-nine 
establishments, having capital of $4,326,629, were reported 
idle. News-print in rolls amounted to 455,000 tons, 
valued at $15,775,000, the average cost being $34.62>4 and 
selling price $50 to $60 per ton. Book-paper amounted to 
282,000 tons, valued at $19,467,000, the average cost at 
the mill being $69.03 per ton. Fine writing amounted 
to 90,000 tons, valued at $12,223,000, the average cost per 
ton at the mill being $135.81. Other figures were: 

290 



MODERN EXPANSION 



manilla wrapping, 89,000 tons, value, $5,930,000; heavy 
wrapping, 83,000 tons, value, $4,143,000; straw wrapping, 
92,000 tons, value, $2,028,000 ; bogus wood manilla, 204,000 
tons, value, $9,149,000. 

Foreign trade assumed larger propertions in this period 
than ever before. We had been importers of paper and 
its manufactures from the colonial and early republic time, 
the amount and the value of such importations showing 
many fluctuations, year by year, but generally on the in- 
crease. Rags and other paper stock had always been 
imported from the time that domestic mills, in their needs, 
had outgrown the domestic supplies in raw materials. 
Now our imports of stock were keeping up and also our 
imports of paper and its manufactures, while our exports 
were beginning to show more strength. 

In 1848 we exported to the value of $78,507 while import 
values were $415,668. In 1852 exports were valued at 
$119,535 and in the following year at $122,212. During 
the civil war and for several years after, paper imports 
amounted to from one to three million dollars annually. 
But soon this large importation began to fall off. Cheap 
news and book-paper, which we had been buying in Bel- 
gium, ceased to find a market here and so also with the 
writings, ledger and fancy papers from England and 
France. Our heaviest importations in this later period 
were to the value of $1,580,117 in 1871 and in 1877, 
$1,200,103. After 1877 imports in several years were to 
the following values : 1879, $1,186,382; 1880, $1,671,120; 
1882, $2,034,289, with slight falling off in the next five 
years; 1888, $2,400,790; 1893, $3,880,981, with slight fall- 
ing off in the next six years. 

Until after the civil war our exports of paper were nearly 
negligible in quantity and in value, and in the immediately 
subsequent years they crawled up very slowly and with 
occasional set-back. Beginning in 1870 values of our ex- 
ports in several years thereafter were: 1870, $514,592;. 
1879, $1,117,677;' 1880, $1,201,143; 1881, $1,408,976, con- 
sidered to be exceptionally large ; 1884, $929,821 ; 1885, 
$972,493, with a steady annual increase afterward. Inr 
1890 our exports were in value $1,226,686, of which; 

291 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

amount $234,501 was to England, $181,800 to Cuba, $89,- 
540 to Canada, $78,319 to Australia and $74,640 to Mex- 
ico. During the next ten years these values steadily 
increased each successive year except in 1899 when there 
was the immaterial falling away of $16,680. 

Imports of paper and its manufactures, in 1900, not in- 
cluding books, maps and other printed matter, were to the 
value of $3,795,645. From that point the increase was 
regular every year until, in 1908, the amount was $12,223,- 
058. In 1909 there was a falling-off to $11,632,571 which 
was followed by slight decreases in each year thereafter 
until, in 1915, the figures were $10,317,211. In 1909 im- 
ports of printing-paper were to the value of $903,705. 
There were small increases in 1910, 1911 and 1912, and 
then, in 1913, the figures jumped to $6,034,023, in 1914, 
to $11,075,659 and in 1915 to $13,119,912. 

Imports of paper stock, including rags, amounted in 
value, in 1900, to $3,261,778. After a decrease to $2,183,- 
686, in 1901, there was a gradual rise, year by year, until, 
in 1907, came the figure of $5,580,528. In 1908 there was 
a drop to $3,675,926, and, in 1909, to $3,638,034. In 1900 
the imports advanced to $5,206,877, increasing each year 
thereafter until, in 1914, the values of $8,571,207 were 
reached. Then, in 1915, the effect of the European war 
was shown in a fall of nearly fifty per cent in these imports, 
the drop being to $4,817,583. Foregoing figures do not 
include wood-pulp. Imports of wood-pulp, in 1900, were 
to the value of $2,405,630, and increased to $4,500,955 in 
1905, $6,348,857, in 1907, $8,629,263 in 1908, $11,768,014 
in 1909, $13,980,357 in 1911, $16,165,316 in 1913 and $19,- 
881,111 in 1915. Pulp-wood was imported in 1907 to the 
value of $2,792,751, in 1910, $6,392,023, in 1913, $6,954,- 
952, in 1914, $7,245,466 and in 1915, $6,572,839. 

During the ten years from 1900 to 1909, each inclusive, 
we exported paper and its manufactures, exclusive of 
books, maps and other printed matter, to annual amounts 
as follows: $5,477,884; $6,215,833; $7,438,901; $7,312,- 
030; $7,180,014; $7,543,728; $8,238,088; $9,536,065; 
$9,856,733; $8,064,706; $7,663,139. Printing-paper was 
.exported in 1900 to the value of $2,521,320. In the subse- 

292 



MODERN EXPANSION 



quent ten years those figures did not materially change, 
being the highest, $3,489,589, in 1901, the lowest, $2,140,- 
582, in 1908, and, in 1910, $2,766,659. In 1911 the figures 
rose to $3,689,553, in 1913 to $4,057,219, in 1915 to $4,669,- 
009. Writing-paper and envelopes rose in value of ex- 
ports from $463,248 in 1900 to $975,099 in 1905, $1,200,- 
742 in 1907, $1,351,226 in 1913 and then dropping to $1,- 
179,232 in 1914 and $1,098,197 in 1915. Of the exports 
for 1914 Australia took the largest quantity of printing- 
paper, to the value of $947,185, with Argentina, second, 
to the value of $447,908. But in 1915 our best customer 
in this line was Argentina, to which country we sold to the 
value of $806,217; and Australia was second with value 
of $744,356. In 1916 we sold to Argentina to the value 
of $1,039,360, to Cuba, $376,011 and to Australia, $296,- 
394. Sales of books, engravings, maps, music and other 
printed matter to Canada amounted to $4,905,329 in 1914; 
$4,123,068 in 1915 and $4,420,478 in 1916, being in each 
year nearly one-half of our total exports of that descrip- 
tion. 239 

Long before 1900 was in sight modern machinery had 
been the prime factor in the industry, and modern mills as 
they were to be for a generation at least were fully es- 
tablished in character even if not yet in completest develop- 
ment. Looking at modern mills so well equipped with 
Fourdriniers and cylinders, it is not easy to understand 
the scepticism as to the efficiency of those machines and 
the possibilities inherent in them that existed for more 
than half a century after their appearance and that, in- 
deed, continued even into contemporaneous times. Few 
persons then had dreamed of the increase in size and 
speed of running that was to come in a generation. In 
1847 the machines used in the United States were almost 
insignificant in size compared with those that were to come 
after. When the Chelsea mill in Norwich, Conn., put in 
an eighty- four-inch machine it was considered a wonder. 

Previous to 1867 the width of the widest machine was 



™ Statistical Abstract of the United States, Twenty-eighth Num- 
ber, pp. 292, 300, 320. Ditto, Thirty-eighth Number, 1915, pp. 401-2 
and 413-14, 444. 

293 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

not more than one hundred inches and the maximum speed 
did not exceed one hundred feet per minute. At that time 
it was generally supposed that the limit of width and 
speed had been reached. In 1872 The Paper Trade Re- 
porter of New York stated as a surprising fact that, while 
the ordinary speed of the Fourdrinier machine was from 
sixty to eighty feet per minute, on printing paper, there 
was then one machine running at the rate of one hundred 
and seventy-five feet per minute, producing twenty-five 
tons of paper weekly. Nevertheless paper-makers in 
Europe and in the United States still continued doubtful. 
Their views, as late as 1873, were accurately expressed by 
one writer : 

"If every part is constructed with the utmost care, 
substantially and true, a machine with a wire 33 feet 
in length and seven drying cylinders of 3 feet diam- 
eter, can make news-print paper at a speed of from 
100 to 130 feet per minute. The width of the ma- 
chines has also been increased until wires 86 inches 
wide are now quite numerous, and some of 90 inches 
and even 100 inches are in use." 234 

Not long after this, in 1880, a Fourdrinier was built for 
the mill of P. H. Glatfelter, in Spring Forge, Penn., that 
had a speed of two hundred feet per minute. From that 
time on the pace was steadily increased until, before 1897, 
machines one hundred and sixty inches wide had been 
built, an increase of sixty per cent, in thirty years. There 
were four mills equipped with machines capable of making 
merchantable news-paper continuously at five hundred feet 
per minute, an increase of four hundred per cent., in the 
thirty years that had elapsed since 1867. Those four were 
in the plants of the Glens Falls Paper Mill Company of 
Glens Falls, N. Y., the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Com- 
pany of Palmer's Falls, N. Y., the Glen Manufacturing 
Company of Berlin, N. H., and the Willamette Pulp and 
Paper Company of Oregon City, Ore. 235 The largest ma- 



234 Carl Hoffman: Treatise on the Manufacture of Paper (1873), 
p. 193. 

235 T. H. Savery: The Paper Machine. In The Paper Trade 
Journal, October 16, 1897, p. 9. 

294 



MODERN EXPANSION 



chine then in the world — 1897 — was a Fourdrinier built by 
the Rice, Barton & Fales Machine and Iron Company 
for the Rumford Falls Paper Company of Rumford, 
Me. The felts for this machine were one hundred and 
seventy-two inches wide and the width of the paper run 
was one hundred and fifty-two inches. At that time, in 
spiking- contrast with this big machine, was the smallest 
machine in the world, which had been built by the Pusey & 
Tones Company of Wilmington, Del., for the Heller & 
Merz Company of Newark, N. J. The machine had one 
forming cylinder, fourteen inches diameter and fifteen 
inches face; one pair of press rolls, sixteen inches diameter 
and fourteen inches face, and three dryers, fifteen inches 
diameter and fourteen inches face. 

Even then most manufacturers were slow in conced- 
ing the real value of the great machinery advance. 
Especially was this true across the Atlantic. An Eng- 
lish writer in 1897 thought that he had reached the 
limit in extolling the accomplishment of the modern 
machine when he said that : "A modern machine will 
produce a piece of paper 300 to 400 feet long and 120 
inches wide in one minute and will turn out about 55 
tons of paper per week." Another writer about the 
same time, doubting the report that machines in the 
United States were running at five hundred feet per 
minute, said : 

"It may some day happen that the construction of 
paper machines will be so improved and the 'stuff' 
worked in such a way as to enable paper makers to 
work with advantage at this high speed; but I think 
I am right in saying that the general consensus of 
opinion is strongly against such high pressure for 
profitable work." 230 

It took less than twenty years for the Americans to 
confound those doubting Thomases with machines from 
one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty-six 
inches wide, and a speed of six hundred and thirty to six 
hundred and fifty feet a minute. 



™ Journal of the Society of Arts, (1898), XL VI., p. 416. 

295 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

There has been a steady increase in the number of 
machines in the mills of this country and their producing 
capacity ever since they were first introduced and espe- 
cially in the present generation. In 1899 American mills 
had six hundred and sixty-three Fourdriniers and five hun- 
dred and sixty-nine cylinders ; in 1904, seven hundred and 
fifty-two Fourdriniers and six hundred and seventeen cyl- 
inders ; in 1909, eight hundred and four Fourdriniers and 
six hundred and seventy-six cylinders. The total annual 
tonnage capacity of these machines, in the same years, 
was: 2,782,219 in 1899; 3,857,903 in 1904; 5,293,397 in 
1909. In following years the number of machines of both 
kinds and their capacity increased. The largest Four- 
drinier in 1916 was in the Columbia mill of the Crown 
Willamette Paper Company at Camas, Washington, one 
hundred and eighty-six inches. In the mill of the Minne- 
sota & Ontario Power Company, at International Falls, 
Minn., were two Fourdriniers, one hundred and eighty- 
four inches each ; and the same company had also two one 
hundred and fifty-four-inch machines. Fourdriniers of one 
hundred and fifty inches upward were not uncommon and 
cylinders reached the size of one hundred and forty-two 
and one hundred and forty-five inches. Among the big 
plants of contemporaneous times, equipped with Four- 
driniers, were : the Rumford Falls mill, nine, from seventy- 
eight to one hundred and fifty inches ; the Otis mill, nine, 
from seventy-seven to one hundred and forty-one inches ; 
the Oxford mill, ten, from seventy-eight to one hundred 
and forty-two inches ; the West Virginia Pulp and Paper 
mill in Maryland, seven, from ninety-two to one hundred 
and fifty-two inches ; the eight mills of Crocker, Burbank 
& Co., in Fitchburg, Mass., fourteen, from seventy-two to 
one hundred and fifty-six inches ; the mill of the New York 
and Pennsylvania Company in Johnsonburg, Penn., eight, 
from ninety-six to one hundred and fifty-eight inches ; the 
Great Northern Millinocket mill in Maine, eight of one 
hundred and fifty-two inches and one of one hundred and 
fifty-eight inches ; the Columbia mill of the Crown Willa- 
mette Paper Company in Camas, Washington, six from 
eighty-four to one hundred and thirty-six inches, one of 

296 



MODERN EXPANSION 



one hundred and fifty-two inches and one of one hundred 
and eighty-six inches ; the Cumberland mills of S. D. 
Warren & Co., twelve, from fifty-six to one hundred and 
forty-five inches. 237 And in Canada they had reached the 
width of over two hundred inches and were talking of 
more; but that has nothing to do with the history of the 
mills on this side of the border. /> 

While prices had sailed skyward from 1861 to 1865 they 
declined at rapid rate from 1865 to 1880: superfine writ- 
ing folded, fifty-eight per cent. ; machine-finished book, 
fifty-three per' cent. ; super-calendered book ; fifty per cent. 
Some scattering figures of prices that prevailed during 
the third of a century after 1870 will give something of an 
idea of the conditions of the market in those times. In 
1871 superfine book was selling in the eastern markets for 
twenty to twenty-four cents a pound and in Chicago and 
Cincinnati for sixteen to eighteen cents. Fine book was 
selling for sixteen to seventeen cents, straw paper for 
newspapers for twelve cents and straw-wrapping for four 
and one-half and five cents. News print was selling at 
various centers, in 1875, for nine cents, superfine calen- 
dered book for thirteen to fourteen and one-half cents and 
machine finish book for ten to eleven cents. In 1895 
prices were : news, two and three-eighths to two and three- 
fourths cents ; super, four and three-fourths to five and 
one-half cents and machine finish four to four and one- 
half cents, a steady fall, year by year, for the twenty years. 
In 1889 writing ranged from fourteen and seventeen cents 
for superfine to seven and one-half and nine cents for 
engine sized. Super and calendered book commanded six 
and one-half and seven and one-half cents. News, not un- 
der contract, was three and one-fourth cents and upward. 

Abnormal conditions in the world in 1899 affected the 
paper industry in this country. The Spanish-American 
war, the Boer war and other affairs stimulated newspaper 
reading so that the demand for news print rose, mills were 
pushed and prices went up. News which, in the preceding 
few years had tended to fall in price, went up again to 



Lockwood's Directory for 1897. 

297 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

three cents and more. The American Writing Paper Com- 
pany advanced prices. Book paper prices in all grades 
went up, super to five and one-half and six and one-half 
cents. Manilla, tissue, board and all other kinds joined in 
the rising. Prices were not long maintained at the figures 
of that time. A year later the average price for all paper 
used in newspapers and periodicals was down to 2.57 
cents per pound; news in rolls was 1.7 cents, news in 
sheets, 1.89 cents, and wood-fibre book 3.45 cents. With 
fluctuations of minor character these low prices were main- 
tained for the next dozen years. 

Paper-trade journalism began in 1872 when Howard 
Lockwood published the first number of The Paper Trade 
Journal. A few years previous, The Paper Trade Reporter 
was published but it was a small affair and did not long 
endure. Mr. Lockwood was a young man who had been 
in the trade only a few years when he conceived the klea 
of a newspaper devoted to its interests. He was not a 
newspaper man but he had a natural instinct for news- 
gathering, a genius for publishing, a good knowledge of 
the trade in paper and acquaintance with the processes of 
its manufacture. Independent, fair, honest, and enter- 
prising from the outset, aiming only to print all the news 
and to serve the interests of the industry in every con- 
ceivable legitimate manner, Mr. Lockwood was imme- 
diately successful and his paper soon became a power for 
good. In 1873 he began the publication of Lockwood's 
Directory of the Paper and Stationery Trades; in 1875 
The American Stationer and in 1885 The American Book- 
maker, afterward The Printer and Bookmaker. In addi- 
tion to these periodicals he published books relating to the 
industry such as The Chemistry of Paper Making and The 
Dictionary of Printing and Book Making. He died in the 
prime of life, in 1892, but he had lived to see his publica- 
tions firmly established in the foremost ranks of trade 
journalism in the United States. In subsequent years 
there were other periodicals in the field notably The Amer- 
ican Paper Trade and Wood Pulp News, The Paper Mill 
and several times Paper. 

Contributing much to a general advancement and broad 

298 



MODERN EXPANSION 




Howard Lockwood. 

Founder of the Paper Trade Journal. 

development of the industry has been influence emanating 
from various associations established among those active 
in the trade. First of these was the American Paper Man- 
ufacturers' Association which grew out of a convention 
held in 1878 and which presently became the American 
Paper and Pulp Association. With an initial purpose for 
co-operation to control the market and stabilize prices, the 
association shortly took on social in place of the business 
character that had first informed it and exercised influence 
by the interchange of views among its members, on condi- 

299 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

tions and problems of the industry. The membership of 
the association, 1878-1916, included practically all the lead- 
ing men in the industry. Among its presidents during 
that period were William Whiting, Wellington Smith, 
William H. Parsons, Byron Weston, William A. Russell, 
Warner Miller, Augustus G. Paine, George F. Perkins, 
Hugh J. Chisholm, P. C. Cheney, Arthur C. Hastings, A. 
B. Daniels and George W. Knowlton. Other associations 
in different branches of the trade have been active and in- 
fluential in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
the Miami Valley of Ohio, central New York State, west- 
ern Pennsylvania, the Pacific coast and the northwest 
section. Of late origin and of more business character 
was the News Print Manufacturers' Association, formed 
to conserve the interests of the manufacturers of news- 
print. Under the management of George F. Steele a great 
deal of remarkable service was done, statistical and 




George F. Steele. 
300 



MODERN EXPANSION 



otherwise for this particular branch of the industry. 

Importance of advanced technic in paper-making was 
recognized in this new era more than ever before. The 
pursuit became more thoroughly scientific — a profession 
rather than a trade. Technical knowledge and experience 
were demanded in men who would undertake the work of 
making paper and developing the industry. To this end 
schools for instruction were started to supplement prac- 
tical labor in the mills. The first collegiate institution to 
move in this direction was the University of Maine, at 
Orono, which, in 1912, began lectures and laboratory 
courses on the making of pulp and paper, and on forestry 
in connection therewith. A small paper-plant was in- 
stalled in 1914. Students also had opportunity to learn 
from actual experience in mills and in lumber camps. 

In 1912 the United States government established in 
the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, a forest products 
laboratory, consisting of a paper-mill, with two beating 
and one refining engine, and a pulp-mill, with a wet ma- 
chine, a soda-digester, sulphite-digester and two grinders. 
The plant was for experimenting with and testing the 
commercial value of different fibres for paper-making. In 
1910 a laboratory equipped with grinder, barker, wet ma- 
chine and other machinery was established at Wausau, 
Wis., to experiment and study ground-wood problems. 

In 1916 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology de- 
veloped a plan to give practical instruction to its advanced 
students in applied chemistry as related to manufacturing 
interests. In the field of pulp and paper-making the Insti- 
tute selected, as a station for this purpose, the plant of the 
the Eastern Manufacturing Company, South Brewer, 
Me. Arrangements were made for a laboratory building 
and a course of instruction in all the various processes of 
manufacturing pulp from wood and rags and perfecting it 
for paper-stock; and as an outgrowth of this it was pro- 
posed ultimately to establish a research organization. And 
to these institutional enterprises must be added private 
experimental establishments like the Arthur D. Little of 
Boston, and the increasing experimenting of individual 
workers in the mills everywhere. 

301 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

Before 1880 hand-made paper had nearly disappeared 
as an American product, machinery having driven it out 
of existence. The last to abandon the old method was the 
Willcox mill in Pennsylvania, the mill of the L. L. 
Brown Paper Company in Adams, Mass., and the mill of 
the Seymour Paper Company in Windsor Locks, Conn. 
In 1897 the Brown mill was the only one left, but there 
that kind of work ceased in 1906. In England, in 1914, 
fourteen firms were producing hand-made paper. 

In the closing years of the nineteenth century came the 
movement toward the concentration of capital in all 
branches of industry which made that period most notable 
in the financial and political history of the country. Dur- 
ing the years 1897, 1898 and for a decade thereafter, the 
movement showed a development that commanded the at- 
tention of the world and that wholly changed the char- 
acter of American industry. In the field of paper-manu- 
facturing, as well as elsewhere, this tendency became mani- 
fest. Capital invested therein increased tremendously and 
as such corporations as the United States Steel and others 
of that ilk came into existence, it naturally followed those 
examples, seeking the opportunity afforded by consolida- 
tion in corporate form, for advantageous employment. 

Disposition had long existed toward loose gentlemen's 
agreements, so-called, in nearly all branches of the indus- 
try. The futility of such attempts to restrict production 
when restriction was considered necessary to control 
amount and distribution of output and to maintain prices 
was demonstrated again and again. Out of these failures 
came a few successful attempts at co-operation and con- 
solidation, but more efforts that were in the end abortive. 
Several of the large corporations that became and re- 
mained conspicuous and influential in the industry date 
from that time and were the outgrowth of the investment 
influences then being exercised. 

The International Paper Company became the conspicu- 
ous success of this consolidation movement. Incorporated 
in 1898 the company acquired many of the most important 
mills manufacturing news in the eastern states and grad- 
ually added other paper and pulp mills, wood lands and 

302 



MODERN EXPANSION 




William A. Russell. 



water power to its possessions. With a capital stock of 
$25,000,000 preferred and $20,000,000 common and a 
bonded mortgage of $10,000,000, its assets in 1900-01 were, 
mill plants $41,586,964, and wood lands and other property 
$4,101,723: these values increasing in subsequent years. 
The company then owned thirty-four mill plants, water- 
powers and wood lands in Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- 
mont, Massachusetts, New York and Ontario and had con- 
trolling interests in the Continental Paper Bag Company, 
the St. Maurice Lumber Company, the American Realty 
Company, the American Sulphite Company, the Winnipi- 
seogee Lake Cotton and Woollen Company and the 
Michigan Pulp Wood Company. The organizing presi- 
dent of the company was Alonzo N. Burbank and the first 
active president William A. Russell, who served until his 
death in 1899 and was succeeded by Hugh J. Chisholm 

303 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

who held the office for many years and was the controlling 
power in the company. Among other prominent paper men 
active in its management during the first eighteen years 
of its existence were Warren Curtis, Frederick H. Parks 
and Albrecht Pagenstecker. Mr. Burbank was again presi- 
dent in 1907 and after. 

In 1916, with Philip T. Dodge as president, the company 
owned and operated thirty-one mills. In New York were 
the Glens Falls, Fort Edward, Hudson River, Niagara 
Falls, Curtis, Lake George, Piercefield, Cadyville, Water- 
town and Woods Falls; in Maine the Otis, Rumford 
Falls, Webster, Livermore, Solon, Riley and West Enfield ; 
in New Hampshire the Glen and the Winnipiseogee ; in 
Massachusetts the Montague ; in Vermont the Fall Moun- 
tain, Wilder and Milton. All these plants had mills for 
producing ground-wood pulp, their total daily capacity 
being one thousand five hundred and seven tons. With 
the exception of the Curtis, Livermore, Solon, Cadyville, 
Riley, West Enfield and Milton, all had paper mills, 
with total daily capacity of one thousand seven hundred 
and twenty-seven tons. Nine of them had sulphite in addi- 
tion to paper and ground-wood mills, their daily capacity 
being five hundred and seventeen tons, the Rumford Falls 
mill with a daily capacity of one hundred and twenty tons 
being the largest. 

The American Writing Paper Company was incorpor- 
ated in New Jersey with a capital stock of $25,000,000 
and organized with Elisha Morgan of Springfield, Mass., 
as president. The company took over the mills of these 
concerns : Beebe & Holbrook Paper Company, Chester 
Paper Company, Massasoit Paper Company, Esleeck Pa- 
per Company, Hurlbut Manufacturing Company, Crocker 
Manufacturing Company, Oakland Paper Company, 
Springdale Paper Company, Parsons Paper Company, 
Norman Paper Company, Platner & Porter Paper Manu- 
facturing Company, Windsor Paper Company, Linden Pa- 
per Company, Nonotuck Paper Company, Harding Paper 
Company, Holyoke Paper Company, Dickinson Paper Com- 
pany, Riverside Paper Company, 'Shattuck & Babcock 
Company, Albion Paper Company, Syms & Dudley 

304 



MODERN EXPANSION 




Arthur C. Hastings. 

Paper Company, George C. Gill Paper Company, Con- 
necticut River Paper Company, Aga warn Paper Company, 
Eaton, May & Robbins Paper Company, George K. Baird 
Paper Company, Wauregan Paper Company and the plant 
of the Hurlbut Stationery Company. The- company down to 
1916," when Arthur C. "Hastings had been president for 
several years, had done, from its start,- an annual busi- 
ness of about $12,000,000. Twenty-two mills were then 
owned and operated by the company. The total capacity 
of these mills was 828,500 pounds daily. 

For upward of twenty-five years the straw-board inter- 
ests have been the subject of more attention from finan- 
ciers, promoters, pooling agents and speculators than any 
other single branch of the paper industrv. A volume 
would be required to rehearse in detail all the history in 
these various movements for control or manipulation in 
the straw field. Before 1890 pooling arrangements were 

305 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

entered into by many of the mill owners and prices went 
up and then down as the pool or its competitors might 
be dominant, but after a time these were abandoned. In 
1889 the Union Straw Board was in control of ninety per 
cent of the mills, but the same year it was succeeded by 
the American Straw Board Company which, with a 




O. C. Barber. 



• capital of $6,000,000, was powerful in the market. Prices 
came down to $35 and $32 a ton, but soon went up again. 
In January, 1892, the American Straw Board Company 
and the independents came to an agreement on prices at 
$40@$32.50, but the compact was soon broken. At that 
time the daily product of the country was seven hundred 
and fifty tons and the daily consumption four hundred 
and fifty tons. 

306 



MODERN EXPANSION 



In 1897 the American Straw Board Company and the 
Standard Straw Board Company, a selling organization, 
were in the field in agreement to control, but outside mills 
broke prices. The Standard retired but the Straw Board 
Manufacturers' Association came in to do what the other 
had failed to accomplish; but its success was merely a 
temporary flash. In the first months of 1901 the inde- 
pendent mills organized the Manufacturers' Straw Board 
Company as their selling agency and began cutting prices. 
During that year prices fluttered around $20.50 and $32.50. 
The foregoing gives but the merest suggestion of the kal- 
eidoscopic activities in the field of straw-board manufac- 
turing in this generation. Through it all the American 
Straw Board Company maintained its existence in varied 
experience and changing control. 

In 1916 the company owned thirteen mills, six of which 
were in Ohio, in Barberton, Circleville, Dayton, Piqua, 
Tiffin and Tippecanoe City; three were in Illinois, in 
Lockport, Quincy and Wilmington ; and one each in Ches- 
tertown, Md. ; Winchester, Va. ; Norwich, Conn., and 
Noblesville, Ind. Nine mills were in operation with daily 
capacity of four hundred and seventy- four tons. The pres- 
ident of the company was then O. C. Barber who was 
one of its founders in 1889 and its first president. Mr. 
Barber was active in the straw board business as far 
back as 1874 when he built the mill of the Akron, Ohio, 
Straw Board Company. He also built the Wabash paper- 
mill and the mill of the American Straw Board Company 
at Circleville in 1882. 

This movement toward big corporations extended well 
over into the twentieth century before it settled down 
fixedly into a permanent condition. From 1900 on, for 
ten years or more, was a period particularly of strenuous 
and sometimes exciting effort in that direction. Other 
substantial corporations, that were destined to become 
prominent and influential in the industry, had their begin- 
nings then. They were combinations controlling many 
heretofore individual enterprises or they were single prop- 
erties expanding to meet the demands of the time. 

The United Box Board and Paper Company, in 1902, 

307 



PAPER MAN UFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

took over mills operated by twenty-eight companies and 
firms making straw, news and other boards. Five years 
later, after prolonged internal disagreements between 
the stockholders and the management, most of the mills 
went back to the original owners. In 1908, out of a 
receivership, the company was reorganized as the United 
Boxboard Company. Out of this came, in 1912, the United 
Paperboard Company, Sidney Mitchell president, with 
capital stock of $14,100,000. In 1916 the company owned 
and operated eleven paper-board mills, daily capacity three 
hundred and seventy two tons, in Benton Falls and Fair- 
field, Me., Whippany, N. J., Urbana, Ohio, Peoria and 
Ml. Carmel, 111., Rockport, Wabash and West Muncie, 
Ind., Lockport and Schuylerville, N. Y. ; six ground-wood 
mills, daily capacity ninety-three tons, in Benton Falls, 
Fairfield, Schuylerville, Lockport and West Muncie ; one 
soda-mill, daily capacity thirty tons, in Fairfield, and one 
sulphite-mill, daily capacity thirty tons, in Lockport. 

The Union Bag and Paper Company was organized in 
1910, for the purpose of taking over the then-existing 
Union Bag and Paper Company, the Consolidated S. O. S. 
Bag Company, the Van Nortwick paper and bag inter- 
ests and several mills in New York. The capital stock 
was $27,000,000, and there was an authorized bond issue 
of $5,000,000. The properties of the company consisted 
of three paper-mills, in Hudson Falls, N. Y., and 
one each in Ballston Spa, N. Y., and Kaukauna, Wis. ; 
four ground-wood mills in Hudson Falls, and one 
each in Ballston Spa, Hadley, N. Y., and Kaukauna; 
one sulphite mill in Hudson Falls. In 1916 the office 
of president of the company was vacant and August Heck- 
sher as chairman of the board of directors exercised 
general direction of its affairs. The company was then 
operating, in Hudson Falls and Kaukauna, ten mills 
with daily capacity of two hundred and fifteen tons 
of paper, fifty-nine tons of ground-wood and one hundred 
and forty tons of sulphite-fibre. It also operated bag fac- 
tories in Hudson Falls, Kaukauna and Chicago and con- 
trolled a subsidiary company in Canada, the St. Maurice 
Paper Company. 

308 



MODERN EXPANSION 



The Continental Paper Bag Company was organized 
with preferred stock of $2,500,000 and common stock of 
$2,500,000. In 1916 the company, Herman Elsas, presi- 
dent, owned the Watertown mill in Watertown, N. Y., the 
Ashland in Ashland, N. H., and the Greenwich in Green- 
wich, N. Y., the daily capacity of these mills being thirty 
tons of tissue and eight tons of ground-wood. In addi- 
tion the company owned a bag factory in Rumford, Me. 




John G. Luke. 

The Great Northern Paper Company came into being, 
in 1899, with capital of $4,000,000 and built the big modern 
Millinocket mill in Maine. Among its owners were Oliver 
H. Payne, Augustus G. Paine, and Garrett Schenck. The 
company acquired 260,000 acres of timber land and subse- 
quently added other paper and pulp mills to its property. 
In 1916, besides its original ten-machine news-mill, of 
three hundred and twenty tons daily capacity, it had a 

309 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

news-mill in East Millinocket, of one hundred and eighty 
tons daily capacity, a news and bag - paper-mill in Madi- 
son, Me., of sixty tons daily capacity, and three pulp- 
mills, with daily capacity of six hundred and ten tons of 
ground wood, and sulphite fibre. 

The West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, already 
a large and flourishing concern under the presidency of 
John G. Luke, was reincorporated, in 1899, and consoli- 
dated the property of the Morrison and Case Paper 
Company in Tyrone, Penn., with that which it owned in 
West Virginia. By 1916 the company had further 
expanded in five states, New York, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, Virginia and West Virginia, having five paper-mills 
with daily capacity of four hundred and fifty tons of book, 
writing and other papers ; four soda-pulp mills with daily 
capacity of two hundred tons, and three sulphite-fibre mills 
with daily capacity of one hundred and seventy tons. 

Among other large corporations that came into being 
after 1900 were: the St. Croix Paper Company, $2,500,- 
000, the Finch, Pruyn & Co., $3,000,000 ; the consolidation 
of the ( Columbia River Paper Company and the Crown 
Paper Company as the Crown-Columbia Pulp and Paper 
Company, $1,000,000; the Champion Fibre Company to 
build a pulp mill in North Carolina, $1,000,000; the con- 
solidation of the Bryant Paper Company, the Imperial 
Coating Mills and the Superior Paper Company into the 
Bryant Paper Company, of Kalamazoo, Mich.; the consoli- 
dation of the Tytus Paper Company, the Gardner Paper 
Company and the Middletown Paper Bag Company into 
the Tytus-Gardner Manufacturing Company, $1,000,000; 
the consolidation of the Nekoosa Paper Company, the 
John Edwards Manufacturing Company and the Port Ed- 
wards Fibre Company into the Nekoosa-Edwards Com- 
pany, $3,000,000. The Bryant Paper Company, with a 
capital of $3,000,000 which was increased to $6,500,000, 
in 1916, became the largest producing mill in the world, 
of book-paper. 

Instances like the foregoing might be multiplied but 
sufficient have been noted to show the trend of things. The 
industry grew as it had never grown before in any other 

310 



MODERN EXPANSION 




William H. Parsons. 



period of its existence. Scores of concerns were incor- 
porated with capitalizations ranging from half a million 
to several million dollars, while others, already well-estab- 
lished, increased capitalizations in similar figures. Mil- 
lion dollar corporations became almost commonplace to 
paper-manufacturers. In 1912 nineteen new paper and 
pulp enterprises were inaugurated with a capitalization of 
$15,240,000. In addition there were incorporated nine 
companies dealing in lumber products and pulp-wood 
lands, with capital of $4,130,000. That was a fair example 
of what was taking place, in this decade. 

311 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

In this era of business expansion, when "trusts" had 
everywhere become the order of the day, discussion of 
combinations reached, at times, a state of feverish excite-, 
ment among paper-manufacturers. A great deal of this 
discussion did not get much beyond the speculative and 
spectacular stage, but presently the field of paper learned 
to know the promoter. Nearly all branches of the indus- 
try were exploited and sometimes disastrously. One 
figure that loomed large, in this period, was that of John 
H. Parks whose ambitious plans, best known as the 
"Parks' pooling," commanded attention more by what was 
proposed to be done under them than by any final suc- 
cess achieved thereby. Most of the Parks' Pool organi- 
zations, as they were called, fell under the disapproval 
of the United States government which made short work 
of them. The individual official members were indicted, 
under the Sherman anti-trust law, for actions in restraint 
of trade. Generally they pleaded guilty and were fined 
$2,000 each, and their association was dissolved. Thus 
went by the Fibre and Manila Associations, 1908; the 
American Paper Board Association, in 1910; the Eastern 
Box Board Association, in 1911 ; the General Paper Com- 
pany, a Chicago selling agency for Wisconsin mills, in 
1905 ; the box-board makers in 1905, and others. 

Other combinations that appeared about this time, with 
ambition to absorb and control, did not last long. The 
Columbian Straw Paper Company, with a capital stock 
of $4,000,000, tried to take in the straw-wrapping mills. 
Begun in 1892, it was brought to ah end in 1895 under 
foreclosure proceedings. The National Wall Paper Com- 
pany endured a few years and was then absorbed by the 
Continental Wall Paper Company which eventually went 
the way of its predecessors. For some time interest among 
the pulp-board men was centered around the National 
Wood Board Company, and then the National Board and 
Paper Company, and then the National Pulp Board Com- 
pany, and then the National News Board Company ; and 
from time to time the Paper Products Company, the West- 
ern Box Board Company and others ; but all were soon 
only memories. In 1901 the White Mountain Paper Com- 

312 



MODERN EXPANSION 



pany was incorporated with capital stock of $15,000,000 
and began the construction of a paper and pulp plant in 
Portsmouth, N. H. The company failed before it really 
began ; in 1903 a receiver was appointed and the company 
declared bankrupt. The property was sold in 1905 to 
the Publishers Paper Company organized with capital of 
$6,000,000, but that was out of existence a few years later. 
The Manufacturers Investment Company started in with 
a sulphite mill in Appleton, Wis., in 1891, and a mill in 
Madison, Me., but lasted only a few years. In 1899 it 
went under the hammer at a receiver's sale, the Wisconsin 
property being acquired by the Interlake Pulp and Paper 
Company which had a ground-wood mill also, while the 
mill in Madison was bought by the Great Northern Paper 
Company. The Union Waxed and Parchment Paper Com- 
pany was organized with a capital of $1,800,000. It 
purchased several mills but later consolidated its business 
in the Climax mills, in Hamburg, N. J., where it per- 
manently remained. In August, 1892, the United Paper 
Company was incorporated, its purpose being well indi- 
cated by the name under which it was popularly known, 
"The Tissue Paper Trust." Charles F. Gunckel was the 
president. In New York, New Jersey and Ohio, twelve 
mills were purchased and paid for in stock of the cor- 
poration. Control of the tissue market was assured and 
prices began to mount. Then owners of straw-wrapping 
mills saw the opportunity and turned to tissue. The 
market was broken and, in nine months from its start, the 
company went into the hands of a receiver, being finally 
resolved into its constituent elements. Another ambitious 
enterprise of the period was the Singerly Pulp and Paper 
Company, organized in 1890 by William M. Singerly, 
owner of The Philadelphia Record, with a capital of half 
a million dollars. Mr. Singerly built a mill in Elkton, Md., 
and went along for eight years. Then, in the stupendous 
financial crash of all the Singerly interests, banking, pub- 
lishing and manufacturing, in 1898, the mill was ruined 
with the rest and passed into other hands. 



313 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

Latest Census Figures — A Wood-Pulp Issue With 
Canada — Exports From the Dominion Increased 
— The Great European War and Its Effects — 
Scarcity of Paper Stock and Other Materials — 
A Paper-Famine With Rising Prices — A Sec- 
tional and 'State Review of the Industry 

DURING the first decade and a half of the twentieth cen- 
tury there was further growth of the industry. A 
mid-period census gave the number establishments in 1904, 
as seven hundred and sixty-one, capital, $277,444,471, prod- 
uct value, $188,715,189, wage earners, 65,964. The increase 
of two hundred and six in number of establishments from 
1860 to 1905, does not seem large. To a considerable ex- 
tent this is accounted for by the concentration into large 
establishments thus reducing the increase in number. An 
exhibit showing the average amount of capital invested 
and the average value of products per establishment at 
each census, beginning with 1860 and ending in 1905, 
demonstrates this. The figures of average capital in those 
periods were successively: $25,320, $51,043, $64,878, 
$138,412, $219,538, $364,579. Figures of average annual 
product value, in the same periods, were: $38,228, $72,156, 
$77,314, $121,629, $166,876, $247,983. The remarkable 
increase in these averages from 1890 to 1905 cannot escape 
attention as showing the great development of the industry 
in this generation. 

The thirteenth census report gave the number of estab- 
lishments at the close of 1909 as seven hundred and sev- 
enty-seven, representing a capital invested of $409,348,- 

314 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

505, an increase of $241,841,292 since 1899, with value of 
annual production $267,869,000, an increase of $140,542,- 
000. There was a two per cent, gain in the number of 
establishments and a one hundred and ten per cent, gain 
in value of production. While there was a one hundred 
and forty-four per cent, increase in capital invested there 
was only slightly more than fifty-two per cent, increase 
in value of production. Wage earners were 75,978 and 
other employees, 5,495. New York had one hundred and 
seventy-eight establishments, Massachusetts eighty-eight, 
Pennsylvania seventy-two, Wisconsin fifty-seven, Con- 
necticut fifty-one, Ohio forty-seven and Maine forty-five. 
Paper was made to the amount of 4,216,708 tons. News 
print in rolls amounted to 1,091,017 tons, value, $42,- 
807,000, average cost $39.23^ per ton; news print at the 
mills then sold, in some instances, from $40 to $42 a ton. 
Book-paper plain amounted to 575,000 tons, value, $42,- 
846,674, average cost, $74.44 per ton. Fine writing 
amounted to 169,125 tons, value, $24,966,102, average cost 
$147.72. Other figures were: manila wrapping, 73,731 
tons, value, $6,989,436; heavy wrapping, 108,561 tons, 
value, $4,380,792; straw wrapping, 32,988 tons, value, 
$870,419 ; bogus manilla, 367,932 tons, value, $19,777,707 ; 
tissue, 77,745 tons, value, $8,553,654. The tonnage of 
ground-wood and chemical fibre produced in three years, 
was: 1899, 1,179,525; 1904, 1,921,768; 1909, 2,495,523. 

In 1911 the report of the United States tariff board on 
pulp and news print paper gave eight hundred and ninety- 
four plants as making paper of some kind, their total pro- 
ductive capacity being 5,196,398 tons. Of that total news 
print and hangings were 1,335,321 tons, wrapping, 
1,020,914 tons; board, 1,190,214 tons; book, 786,163 tons 
and writing, 210,617 tons. In the same report the num- 
ber of ground-wood mills was given as one hundred and 
ninety-two; grinders, 1,485, producing annually 2,008,680 
tons; sulphite plants, ninety, producing 1,204,894 tons; 
soda pulp plants, thirty-one, producing 417,387 tons. In 
the sulphite and soda plants there were 555 digesters. 

A tabulation of the census of manufactures taken in 
1914 was made public in September, 1916, and showed the 

315 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

following for the industry of paper and pulp : establish- 
ments, seven hundred and eighteen ; capital, $534,625,000 ; 
value of product, $332,147,000; wage earners and other 
employees, 95,156. Comparison with figures for 1909 and 
1904 show a wonderful increase in capital invested and in 
tonnage and value of product in the several branches of 
the industry. From 1909 to 1914 the increase in capital 
was thirty per cent. ; value of products, twenty-four per 
cent. ; employees, seventeen .per cent. ; salaries and wages 
paid, thirty per cent. Comparative figures for 1904 and 
1914 were as follows: roll-news, tons, 841,000 tons, value 
$32,763,000, and 1,186,277 tons, value $47,332,392; sheet 
news, value, $3,143,000 and $5,610,382; book-paper, 
435,000 tons, value, $31,157,000, and 786,626 tons, value, 
$58,496,221 ; writing-paper, 132,000 tons, value, $19,321,- 
000 and 195,351 tons, value, $28,637,257; other fine papers, 
15,000 tons, value, $2,928,000, and 52,377 tons, value, 
$5,417,661 ; heavy wrapping, 97,000 tons, value, $4,036,000 
and 98,780 tons, value, $3,588,357 ; straw-wrapping $54,000 
tons, value, $1,389,000 and 15,606 tons, value, $519,309; 
wood-manillas, 228,000 tons, value, $10,100,000 and 383,987 
tons, value, $17,975,630; boards of all kinds, 521,000 tons 
and 1,208,795 tons. 

The news print branch of paper-manufacturing has been 
largely a development since the civil war. Before that 
period cheap paper was not possible in the absence of 
wood-pulp ; and the enormous size and circulation of mod- 
ern newspapers were unknown. About 1870 the daily pro- 
duction of news print amounted to one hundred and thirty 
tons, the maximum in any one mill being nearly ten tons. 
Since that time the daily ton product of all the mills of 
the country has been in successive years approximately 
as follows : 1880, four hundred ; 1890, seven hundred ; 
1900, one thousand nine hundred; 1905, three thousand; 
1909, four thousand; 1915, six thousand. 

In 1907 agitation developed among newspaper pub- 
lishers on account of the higher prices asked for news- 
print. The government was appealed to for prosecution 
of the so-called "paper trust" and for the repeal of tariff 
duties on paper and pulp. President Roosevelt, in his 

316 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

annual message, advocated the repeal of the duty on pulp 
provided an agreement could be secured with Canada that 
there should be no export duty on pulp-wood from that 
dominion. Nothing came from this immediately but, in 
1910, consideration of a general trade reciprocity with 
Canada resulted in the appointment of commissioners of 
the two countries, who worked out a tentative agreement 
which, in January, 1911, was submitted to congress by 
President Taft. 

In this agreement paper, pulp and pulp-wood were 
placed on the free list except when they came from coun- 
tries that had placed an export duty on them. At that 
time pulp came into the United States free of duty or 
with countervailing duties ; pulp-wood was free, and paper 
bore moderate duties. The reciprocity treaty passed con- 
gress and was signed by the president but it was rejected 
m the Canadian parliament. One section of the measure 
was so framed that even with the refusal of Canada to 
accept the treaty, as a whole, pulp, and paper valued at 
not over two and one-half cents per pound, were to come 
into this country free of duty. Thus our market was 
opened to all the pulp and paper producing countries of 
the world and especially to Canada by reason of her near- 
ness and abundance of pulp-wood. 

The immediate effect of this legislation was to injure 
the trade in the United States especially in sections con- 
tiguous to Canada and to encourage paper-manufacturing 
in that dominion. Depression in the United States pre- 
vailed until the European war of 1914-1916, in a measure, 
overcame the condition. Comparative figures of exports 
from Canada before and after this legislation demonstrate 
how it worked. In 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, for the 
fiscal years ending March 31, exports from Canada to the 
United States were in value as follows : 238 All paper, $2,- 
075,889, $2,086,304, $9,390,144, $10,616,753, $12,950,491 ; 
printing paper, $1,962,832, $1,989,863, $4,242,298, $9,818,- 
539, $12,126,982; chemical wood pulp, $1,298,162, $1,585,- 



138 Dominion of Canada. Session Papers, Vol. 51, No. 7. Report 
of the Department of Trade and Commerce for 1915. Part III., 
pp. 195 and 199. 



317 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

615, $1,995,817, $2,660,013, $4,550,196; mechanical wood 
pulp, $3,796,427, $2,834,329, $2,580,462, $2,253,621, 
$2,893,618; pulp wood, $6,092,715, $5,697,901, $6,806,945, 
$7,388,770, $6,817,311. 

These yearly figures differ slightly from those in the 
United States reports for the reason that the United States 
fiscal years end June 30. During our fiscal year ending 
June, 1916, Canada exported $17,759,018 worth of paper 
to the United States. Exports of pulp-wood were valued 
at $6,102,170, all of which came to the United States, a 
decrease from 1915 of $360,955. Wood-pulp exports to 
the United States were to the value of $10,793,647. Im- 
ports of finished paper and the manufactures thereof from 
the United States were to the value of $4,243,530, and 
books, periodicals, etc., $4,076,671. 

The Underwood-Simmons tariff bill of 1913 operated 
to repeal the section of the reciprocity act of 1911, that 
related to pulp and paper but the burdens that the Ameri- 
can industry complained of were not removed. Free entry 
was given to printing-paper worth not more than two and 
one-half cents a pound and a tax of twelve ceets ad 
valorem was placed on print-paper worth more than two 
and one-half cents. It was also provided that a counter- 
vailing duty should be placed upon printing-paper valued 
above two and one-half cents when imported from any 
country imposing export duty upon paper, wood-pulp or 
pulp-wood. On the free list were many raw materials in- 
cluding rags, pulp-wood and wood-pulp. Duties on chemi- 
cals, china-clay, starch and other articles were reduced. 
Most of the articles on the free list were also free under 
the Payne-Aldrich act of 1909; except news paper gen- 
erally had a moderate protection although slightly re- 
duced, from the tariff prevailing. Most duties were ad 
valorem and the insidious combination of specific and ad 
valorem was largely dropped. The revenue bill enacted 
in 1916 amended the tariff of 1913 by placing on the free 
list printing-paper of value up to five cents a pound with 
the duty of twelve per cent ad valorem applying to paper 
valued above that price. 

During the first year of the great European war the 

318 




INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

industry in this country was in disturbed condition. At 
the beginning everybody, apprehensive, was buying every- 
thing in sight, so that trade was booming. Then came the 
reaction to be expected and a general inactivity out of 
which normal conditions gradually returned. Foreign 
trade kept up for a time, but soon there was a dearth of 
raw materials, especially chemicals and colors. The supply 
of pulp was first abundant but eventually became scarce, 
with prices high. Rags went along the same road. All 
kinds of paper had a record, for the year, of up and down, 
settling finally into practically normal. In 1916 there was 
a marked change. Demand for paper, especially printing, 
increased, and, although mills were running at top-notch 
the market could not be fully supplied. Raw materials 
were scarcer and some were entirely non-procurable. This 
scarcity revived recollections of like conditions in the in- 
dustry in its earlier years. History was repeating and, as 
then, so now the public was exhorted to help by saving 
rags and old paper. The United States secretary of the 
interior and the United States chamber of commerce sent 
out notices to be distributed urging attention to the needs 
of the paper-manufacturers and newspapers carried adver- 
tisements urging the saving of waste paper. 

Throughout the summer the situation grew steadily 
worse, so far as shortage of paper was concerned. News- 
papers were especially hard hit, finding it impossible to 
get paper according to their needs and even the govern- 
ment printing office in Washington feared that it would 
run short. Many newspapers cut down their size and the 
American Newspaper Publishers Association and the 
United States Federal Trade Commission urged publishers 
and other users of paper to practice rigid economies. It 
was freely predicted that, unless consumption could be 
reduced, or, that the war should come quickly to an end, 
so that paper-stock and chemicals could be again freely 
procured, the shortage would become more and more 
procured, the shortage would become more acute. 

Prices went up. All paper was cheap in 1913 and 1914 
but in 1916 all paper was high priced. For news, not under 
contract, almost any price could be got, three, four or 

319 







p* O 



PAPER M ANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

five cents or more a pound, while the prospect was that, 
for 1917, three to four cents would be the market figure 
and, perhaps, supply scarce at that. Book papers were 
eight cents a pound and more and still on the upward 
move. Ground-wood pulp, in September, was thirty to 
thirty-five dollars a ton and little to be had. With supplies 
from Scandinavia cut down bleached sulphite, which was 
$2.75 a hundred weight in 1915, was now $8.80, and un- 
bleached $6.75. And the outlook was for higher prices. 

Statistics are available in Lockwood's Directory show- 
ing the distribution of the industry in the different sections 
of the country in 1916, the character and variety of 
product, the equipment and capacity of the individual mills 
and other relative matter. Beginning in the far north- 
east, Maine was nearly evenly divided between paper- 
making and pulp-making. Its large forests made it an 
inviting region for the upbuilding of the wood-pulp indus- 
try and for the concentration of much making of news 
and other papers near the source of pulp supply. In the 
state there were thirty paper-mills and forty pulp-mills. 
The pulp-mills had a daily capacity of nearly 3,200 tons, 
of which a little more than four hundred tons was soda- 
fibre, over 1,500 tons ground-wood and the balance sul- 
phite-fibre. The paper-mills produced news, book, writ- 
ing, bond, ledger, board, manilla, kraft, wrapping, bag, 
and other varieties, their daily capacity being about 2,400 
tons. Of this total, about one-half was news, the leading 
producers in this line being, the mills of the St. Croix 
Paper Company at Woodland; the International Paper 
Company at Orono and Chisholm; the Great Northern 
Paper Company at Millinocket and Madison; and the 
Pejepscot Paper Company at Brunswick and Lisbon Falls, 
which company had three paper-mills with daily capacity of 
three hundred and twenty tons of news and wrappers, and 
three pulp mills able to produce daily three hundred tons 
of ground-wood and seventy tons of sulphite-fibre. The 
book-paper production of the state, amounting daily to 
nearly four hundred and fifty tons, was almost entirely 
in the hands of the Oxford Paper Company at Rumford, 
and S. D. Warren & Co., at Cumberland Mills, dividing 

321 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

nearly half and half, while the Hollingsworth and Whit- 
ney Company, at Winslow and the Rumford Falls mill 
of the International Paper Company, one with two hun- 
dred and fifteen tons and the other with one hundred and 
ninety tons daily, divided most of the manilla business. 

One of the historic mill sites was that occupied by the 
Warren plant in Gardiner. Francis Richards, before the 




S. D. Warren. 



middle of the last century, operated the second mill in 
Gardiner and members of his family succeeded him as 
the Richards Paper Company in 1884 and after. The 
company also had pulp mills in South Gardiner and Skow- 
hegan. Another Gardiner present-day mill, the Copsecook. 
had its beginning in the enterprise of the Great Falls Com- 
pany in 1852 but its fame has been achieved by the firm 
of S. D. Warren & Co., by whom it was purchased about 
1854. It is a small affair compared with the other S. D. 

322 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

Warren plant, at Cumberland Mills, on the Presumpscot 
river, with its forty-five beating and nineteen refining en- 
gines, and twelve Fourdriners, daily capacity of two hun- 
dred tons of book and one hundred tons of suda fibre. 

In New Hampshire precedence was maintained by the 
two mills of the Berlin Mills Company, the Riverside, 
daily capacity of fifty tons of kraft, and the Cascade, with 
two hundred and twenty-five tons of news and kraft; the 
Glen mill of Berlin, with over one hundred tons of news 
daily ; the two mills of the Odell Manufacturing Company, 




W. H. Sharp. 



W. N. Caldwell. 



daily capacity of one hundred tons of bond, manilla bag 
and other papers; the Claremont, sixty tons manilla and 
wrapping and the Henry mill in Lincoln, eighty tons bond, 
envelope and manilla. The twenty-nine mills of the state 
had a total daily capacity of nine hundred tons. Nearly 
one-half the pulp of the state came from the Burgess Sul- 
phite Fibre Company, in Berlin, which could produce four 
hundred and fifty tons of bleached sulphite-fibre every day. 
Next were the Berlin Mills Company, producing daily one 
hundred and fifty tons of ground-wood and one hundred 
and twenty tons of sulphite and then the Glen mill with 
daily capacity of eighty tons of ground-wood and sixty tons 

323 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of sulphite-fibre. The thirteen pulp mills of the state had 
a daily capacity of 1,100 tons, of which seven hundred and 
eighty was ground-wood. 

Of the eighteen mills in Vermont one only was of much 
size, the Fall Mountain, of Bellows Falls, with daily 
capacity of eighty-two tons of news, manilla and special- 
ties ; the next largest was the Fitzdale mill of forty tons 
of news daily. The product of the other mills was hang- 
ing, manilla, kraft, tissue, blotting, boards and specialties, 
the total capacity of all being only a little more than three 
hundred and fifty tons a day. Eleven pulp-mills had a 




A. W. Esleeck. 



Gecrge W. Wheelwright. 



daily capacity of nearly four hundred tons, all but twenty- 
five tons being ground-wood. 

In number of mills, quality, quantity and value of prod- 
uct Massachusetts still held its preeminent position. It 
was entirely a paper-manufacturing state having only five 
pulp mills with daily capacity of one hundred and eighteen 
tons. But its paper-mills were one hundred and eight. 
Most were making the higher grades of paper such as bond, 
ledger, linen, writing and book, although many of the 
smaller mills made board, hanging, tissue, manilla, roofing, 
sheathing, wrapping, kraft, blotting and other kinds. The 

324 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

total daily capacity of all was over two thousand tons, the 
largest producers under one management being the mills 
of the American Writing Paper Company, daily capacity 
three hundred and fourteen tons. Then there were: the 
mill of Bird & Son, one hundred tons daily of roofing and 
wrapping; the eight mills of Crocker, Burbank & Co., two 
hundred tons daily of book, bristol and card; the mill of 
the Haverhill Box Board Company, one hundred and 
eighty tons daily of board; the mill of the Champion-In- 
ternational Company, one hundred tons daily of coated; 
the four mills of the Fitchburg Paper Company, seventy 
tons daily ; the mill of the Nashua River Paper Company, 
seventy-five tons daily of book, bond and other varieties; 
the mill of the Chemical Paper Manufacturing Company, 
fifty tons daily of bond, linen, cover, writing papetrie and 
other fine papers ; the three mills of the George W. Wheel- 
wright Paper Company, fifty-seven tons of book, coating 
and bristol. 

In Massachusetts the town of Milton no longer held 
the prestige which it had won as the first paper-making 
village in that state and the fifth in the United States. But 
descendants of those early active in the mills there were 
still identified with the industry. At the close of the 
eighteenth century Boies & Tileston there owned and oper- 
ated both the upper and the lower mill, that of Boies & 
Clark, 1765, and that of Boies & McLean, 1771. Mark 
Hollingsworth, who was born in Delaware in 1777, came 
to Milton in 1798 and connected himself with Boies & 
Tileston. When Jeremiah S. Boies retired, about 1809, 
the firm became Tileston & Hollingsworth and the new 
owners enlarged and improved both mills. Mr. Hollings- 
worth, who was a trained paper-maker, was the manufac- 
turer of the concern. He died in Milton in 1855. He 
was succeeded by his son, Amor Hollingsworth, who was 
born in 1808 and died in 1871 and the latter, in turn, was 
succeeded by his son, Amor L. Hollingsworth who was 
born in 1837 and died in 1907 and was president of Tiles- 
ton & Hollingsworth when the concern was incorporated. 
Upon the death of Amor L. Hollingsworth, his son, Amor 
Hollingsworth, became president of the Tileston & Hol- 

325 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

lingsworth Company. Thus for four generations and for 
more than one hundred years have the Hollingsworths 
been identified with paper-manufacturing in Massachu- 
setts. Lineal descendants of Mark Hollingsworth and 
Daniel Vose, who was also early identified with the first 
Milton mills, are Z. T. Hollingsworth, V. Hollingsworth 
and Charles Vose who, as the Hollingsworth & Vose 
Company, have mills in East Walpole and West Groton. 
Watertown, adjoining Newton, had a mill in 1839 
operated by William May, that started a business which 
endured there for more than half a century. In the course 
of time Leonard Whitney, who had worked in the mill, 
acquired possession of the property, and, with his son, 
operated it. In 1862 E. A. Hollingsworth purchased an 
interest and the business was continued under the name 




Mark Hollingsworth. 
326 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

of Hollingsworth & Whitney, as a partnership and as a 
corporation. Mr. Whitney died in 1881 and Mr. Hol- 
lingsworth in 1882, but the business remained in the hands 
of their descendants. In 1884 and after, the concern con- 
tinued to operate two manilla mills in Watertown and also 
had two manilla mills in Gardiner, Me., the Cobbossee 
and the Aroostook both which, in 1916, were owned and 
operated by the same corporation. The Cobbossee mill is 
on the site of a mill built in 1865. 

There was one lone mill in Rhode Island, the Phillips- 
dale, equipped with a single machine for producing fifty 
tons of felt and sheathing every day. 

Connecticut had forty-six paper mills and one pulp mill. 
Most of the mills were small and twenty-nine' of them 
were situated in Hartford county where the business had 
its beginning before the revolution. The daily capacity 
of all the mills was about six hundred and fifty tons, the 
Thames River Specialties Company, in Montville, the New 
Haven Pulp and Board Company and the Uncas mill of 
the American Straw Board Company, in Norwich, each 
with daily capacity of one hundred tons ; and the Wind- 
sor Locks mill of the American Writing Paper Company, 
daily capacity sixty-five tons, being the largest producers. 

For more than half a century the name of Case was 
identified with the industry in this state and it was still 
most conspicuous in 1916. A. Wells Case and one of his 
brothers learned the trade in the old Bunce mills. At 
Highlands, in Manchester, they built a mill, in 1862, and 
during the next twelve years lost it three times by fire 
and once by a flood. Finally they built one in 1874 and 
another in 1884, and these endured into the next century. 
In 1916 the mill of the A. Willard Case Company was in 
Manchester, that of Case Brothers in South Manchester, 
that of the Case Manufacturing Company in Unionville, 
f-hat of Case & Marshall in Burnside, with all which A. 
Willard Case, Lawrence W. Case and Raymond S. Case 
were interconnected. Then there was the mill of the Case 
& Risley Paper Company in Oneco and the Palisade mill 
of the Riverton Company — the only pulp-mill in the state — 
which made pulp for all the Case paper-mills. 

327 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

New York had no near rival in number of mills or im- 
portance and value of product. Its one hundred and sixty- 
two paper-mills had a daily capacity of 4,636 tons of all 
kinds of paper. Twenty-three mills alone could produce 
nearly 2,000 tons, principally news. The several mills — 
paper and pulp — of the International Paper Company ; the 
Knowlton, the Taggart and the Remington plants ; the 
Saratoga county mills of the West Virginia Pulp and 
Paper Company; the mills of the Gould Paper Company; 
the mills of the St. Regis Paper Company; the Dexter 




Edwin R. Redhead. John F. King. 

Sulphite Pulp and Paper Company, and others ; were im- 
pressive factors in maintaining the industry in the State 
at a high point of efficiency. 

Foremost in capacity for news were the Glens Falls, one 
hundred and forty-two tons ; the Finch Pruyn & Co. mill, 
one hundred and five tons ; the Tidewater mill in Brook- 
lyn, one hundred tons ; the Niagara Falls, one hundred and 
fifty-nine tons ; the Fort Edward mill, one hundred and 
thirty-three tons ; the Hudson River mill at Palmer, two 
hundred and sixty-two tons ; the De Grasse mill at Pyrites, 
one hundred and sixty tons, and the Woods Falls mill at 
Watertown, one hundred and seventeen tons. Next in line 

328 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

were the thirty board mills, with daily capacity of about 
1,200 tons. Most of these were small, producing less than 
fifty tons a day, but two were large, the mill of the Pier- 
mont Paper Company, one hundred and seventy-five tons 
daily and the mill of the Tonawanda Board and Paper 
Company, one hundred and fifty tons. And the mill of 
the Racquette River Paper Company of the Sisson family, 
with daily capacity of seventy tons of manilla envelope, 
express and parchment, was listed in the front ranks. 
The Goulds, controlling the Gould Paper Company and 




J. A. OUTTERSON. 



B. B. Taggart. 



the St. Regis Paper Company, became active and influential 
in paper-manufacturing in Jefferson and Lewis counties. 
Their St. Regis mills, in Deferiet, Black River and Her- 
rings, had a daily capacity of one hundred and sixty tons 
of news, twenty tons of manilla, twenty tons of board, two 
hundred and forty tons of ground- wood, and one hundred 
and sixty tons of sulphite-fibre; the Gould mills, in Lyons 
Falls and Port Leyden, had one hundred and thirty-five 
tons of news and eighteen tons of manilla, with five pulp- 
mills equipped with twenty grinders for ground-wood and 
three digesters for sulphite. The St. Regis also owned 

329 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

fifty-eight thousand acres of timber land for pulp pur- 
poses. In December, 1916, the Goulds sold their interests 
in this company to another group of wealthy financiers. 

James A. Outterson became one of the biggest manu- 
facturers in the Black River section at this time. He was 
president of the Carthage Sulphite Pulp and Paper Com- 
pany, the Champion Paper Company, the West End 
Paper Company and the De Grasse Paper Company, his 
four plants having a daily capacity of nearly two hundred 
tons of news and boards, nearly one hundred tons of 
ground-wood and sixty tons of sulphite-fibre. 

The famous Remington mills finally passed out of the 
Remington family possession. In 1915 a receiver was ap- 
pointed for the property which, late in 1916, was sold to 
new owners, prominent among whom and holding a con- 
trolling interest, were Daniel R. Hanna and his sons. 

The ninety-five pulp-mills of the state had a daily 
capacity of about 3,500 tons, of which 2,400 tons was 
ground-wood and nearly nine hundred tons sulphite-fibre. 
Most of this pulp was made by paper-mill companies for 
their own use, comparatively little being sold outside. 
There were eleven pulp-mills that manufactured for the 
market but their output was not large, about one hundred 
and fifty tons daily. The mills of largest capacity were in 
Cadyville, Corinth, Cohoes, Deferiet, Fort Edward, Glens 
Falls, Hudson Falls, Herrings, Hinckley, Lockport, Me- 
chanicsville, Niagara Falls, Norfolk, Palmer and Water- 
town. 

Expansion of paper-making at Niagara Falls, N. Y v 
began after 1850. Mills on Bath Island had been operated 
with more or less success from 1823, but no particular at- 
tention had been given to the utilization of the water-power 
there running to waste. In 1852 Stoughton Pettebone pur- 
chased a part interest in the Bath Island plant from L. C. 
Woodruff and work was carried on by the firm of Wood- 
ruff & Pettebone until 1883 when the firm was dissolved 
and the Pettebone Paper Company incorporated with 
Stoughton Pettebone, L. B. Pettebone, John Quigley and 
others as stockholders and officers. When Bath Island 
and adjacent property was taken by the state of New 

330 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

York for a park reservation the Pettebone Paper Com- 
pany, in 1884, built another mill on the banks of the 
hydraulic canal where it ever after continued. Prior to this 
there had been a pulp-mill on the river bank, built and 
operated by Hill & Murray but afterward owned by C. B. 
Gaskill, J. J. Maclntire and others, incorporated as the 
Cataract Manufacturing Company. In 1892 the Pettebone 
and the Cataract companies consolidated and formed the 
Pettebone-Cataract Company which was still in existence 
in 1916, running both the paper-mill and the pulp-mill. 

One of the earliest promoters of pulp-making at Niagara 
Falls was John F. Quigley. In 1877 he built a pulp-mill 
and made about four tons a day. Eleven years later a 
paper-mill was added to the plant and Arthur C. Hastings, 
who had come from Rochester, was installed as manager. 
After a time the owners of the plant incorporated as the 
Cliff Paper Company and, in 1892, the business was sold 
by Mr. Quigley to J. F. Schoelkopf, Arthur Schoelkopf, 
Henry Grigg, W. D. Olmstead, George B. Matthews and 
Arthur C. Hastings, who gradually expanded the prop- 
erty into the establishment as it was existing in 1916. 

Early in 1891 the Niagara Glazed Paper Company, pro- 
moted by Henry M. Robertson, C. B. Gaskill and others, 
came into existence, to make, principally, glazed, litho- 
graphic, label and coated papers and box boards. In 1896 
the company was succeeded by the Niagara Surface Coat- 
ing Company, of which John C. Tammerts was the prin- 
cipal owner, but that in time went out of existence. An- 
other early mill in Niagara was that of Allan & Jones 
which, in 1880, was taken over by the Niagara Wood 
Paper Company with Walter Jones as manager, and ma- 
chinery for making boards was then added. 

In 1892 the Niagara Falls Paper Company was organ- 
ized by Lewis A. Hall. J. L. Norton. D. O. Mills, J. C. 
Morgan and others and a plant was built that was then 
considered one of the most complete in the world. The 
company developed its own water-power, and had seven 
thousand two hundred water horse-power and two thou- 
sand three hundred steam horse-power. It installed one 
one hundred and thirty-seven-inch and five one hundred 

331 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

and twenty-two-inch Fourdriniers and was able to turn 
out one hundred and twenty-five tons of news every 
twenty-four hours. In addition there was a sulphite mill 
of forty tons daily capacity and a ground-wood mill of 
sixty tons capacity. Twenty-five years after this starting 
the plant was still in as full and effective operation as 
when it began, the largest in production in Niagara Falls, 
and a part of the International Paper Company. 

New Jersey had fallen largely into the line of board 
manufacturing. Of the forty-six mills in the state twenty- 
three were, in whole or in part, devoted to boards and 
out of a total of one thousand tons daily capacity nearly 
seven hundred were of boards. The remaining product 
of three hundred tons was mostly in manilla, felting, tissue, 
building and other varieties. No news and very little 
book was made. The largest plants were those of the Mc- 
Ewen Brothers, in Whippany, one hundred and ten tons 
of boards daily ; the mill of the H. W. Johns-Manville 
Company, one hundred tons daily of asbestos and felt, 
and the two mills of the United Paperboard Company in 
Whippany, ninety tons daily. 

Pennsylvania was the third state in number of mills and 
amount of product. It had seventy-one paper-mills with 
daily capacity of about 2,000 tons. Eleven mills had capac- 
ity of from fifty to one hundred and forty-five tons and 
one — the Philadelphia Paper Manufacturing Company — 
could make two hundred and eighty tons of board every 
day. The property of the New York and Pennsylvania 
Company, of which Colonel A. G. Paine was long the re- 
sponsible and successful head, consisted of two large plants 
in this state, in addition to a mill in New York, where 
fifty tons of soda-fibre were daily produced. The Johnson- 
burg mill, with eight machines and a capacity of one hun- 
dred and forty-five tons a day of bond, book, envelope, 
writing and other varieties, had with it two pulp-mills, one 
of ninety tons dairy capacity of soda-fibre and the other 
of seventy-five tons of bleached sulphite. The mill in Lock 
Haven, with six machines and daily capacity of seventy 
tons of book, writing, cover, hardware and other varieties, 
had a pulp-mill of sixty-two tons soda-fibre daily. 

332 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

The mill of the Hammermill Paper Company, in Erie, 
ranked among the foremost establishments in the country 
in the production of bond, ledger, superfine and writing. 
It was equipped with five Fourdriniers and had a daily 
capacity of one hundred tons. Another notable mill was 
the Delaware of the Dill & Collins Company, in Philadel- 
phia, with five Fourdriniers and a capacity of forty tons 
daily of book and coated, and an accompanying pulp-mill 
for making twenty-three tons of soda-fibre daily. Other 
large establishments with their daily capacities were : the 
Bayless Manufacturing Corporation, seventy tons of bag 
and kraft; the Frank P. Miller Paper Company, one hun- 




Augustus G. Paine. 
333 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

dred tons of boards ; the H. F. Watson Company, one hun- 
dred and twelve tons of felt and building; the John Long 
Paper Company, eighty tons of roofing; the Nixon Flat 
Rock mills, sixty-two tons of .book ; the West Virginia 
Pulp and Paper Company's two mills, one hundred tons of 
book, writing and other fine papers; the York Haven 
Paper Company, seventy tons of fibre and express papers. 
Nearly one-third of the product of the state was book, 
writing, bond, ledger, linen, lithograph, and other papers 
in that class. 

Pennsylvania's fifteen pulp-mills had a daily capacity of 
seven hundred tons, of which fully six hundred and eighty- 
five tons were soda and sulphite-fibre, each about one-half. 
Among the largest pulp-mills were those of the York 
Haven Paper Company, the West Virginia Pulp and 
Paper Company and the Bayless Manufacturing Company. 

In Delaware the plant of the Jessup & Moore Paper 
Company preserved the traditions of Wilmington on the 
Brandywine as a paper-manufacturing locality from the 
time of the famous Gilpin mill there before 1800. The 
two mills — the Augustine and the Rockland — had a daily 
capacity of over sixty tons of book, while the Delaware 
pulp-mills furnished a like quantity of soda-fibre. 

There has always been one solitary mill in the District 
of Columbia. Succeeding to that distinction, the District 
of Columbia Paper Manufacturing Company was making 
twenty-five tons a day of blotting, cover, book and spe- 
cialties in 1916. 

Maryland became a more important paper-manufactur- 
ing state after the civil war. In 1886 twenty-nine mills 
were in operation, in Bentley Springs, Chestertown, Cono- 
wingo, Easton, Elkton, Ellicott City, Fairhill, Freeland, 
Grove Run, Hagerstown, Hoffmanville, Houcksville, 
Manchester, Morgan, Parkton, Reisterstown, Rising Sun 
and White Hall. Few of these mills were of much im- 
portance. The largest were : that of the Susquehanna 
Water Power and Paper Company in Conowingo, daily 
capacity, twelve tons book and news; The Public Ledger 
mills of George W. Childs in Elkton, daily capacity, four 
tons of news ; the Providence Paper Mills of William M. 

334 



Into the twentieth century 

Singerly in Fairhill, daily capacity, ten tons of news; the 
Chestertown mill, daily capacity, six tons of straw board ; 
the Talbot County mill in Easton, daily capacity, six tons 
of straw board, and the Woodbine in Morgan, daily 
capacity, five tons of straw wrapping. Fully one half the 
product of all the mills in the State was straw wrapping, 
Several of these mills lasted into the twentieth century : 
those of the Youngs in Bentley Springs, the Chestertown 
straw-board mill, the Antietam in Hagerstown and the 
Gunpowder in Parkton. In 1916 there were in Asbestos, 
Baltimore, Bentley Springs, Chestertown, Childs, Elkton, 
Freeland, Hagerstown, Luke, Parkton, Providence, Row- 
landville and White Hall, thirteen paper mills and two pulp 
mills. The product was asbestos, felt, carpet-lining straw 
and other boards, straw and other wrapping, hanging, 




Bloomfield H. Moobe 
335 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

manilla, book, writing and roofing. The total daily capacity 
was one hundred and eighty-two tons of book, one hundred 
and sixty-two tons of other papers and one hundred and 
fifteen tons of soda fibre. Of this total, one hundred and 
thirty-seven tons of book, writing and other paper and 
seventy tons of soda fibre were the output of the West 
Virginia Pulp and Paper Company in Luke. Next in 
quantity of product was the Baltimore Roofing and Asbes- 
tos Company with forty tons of asbestos paper and 
twenty-five tons of wool felt daily. The Jessup & Moore 
Company turned out daily forty-five tons of soda fibre 
from the Radnor pulp mill in Elkton and from their Ken- 
more mill forty tons daily of book and writing. 

In Virginia there were ten paper-mills, five pulp-mills 
and one combined pulp and paper-mill. The paper-mills 
were capable of producing three hundred tons daily, of 
which the mill of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Com- 
pany, at Covington, was credited with ninety-five tons of 
book and lithograph and the Bedford Pulp and Paper 
Company, at Big Island, with seventy-five tons of ticket 
paper. The pulp-mills could produce two hundred and 
twenty-six tons daily, the West Virginia Company mak- 
ing one hundred and twenty tons sulphite, the Bedford 
Company thirty-nine tons of ground wood and the Colum- 
bian Paper Company sixty-seven tons of soda fibre. In 
West Virginia, in 1875, mills existed in Halltown, Shep- 
ardstown, Wellsburg and Wheeling, but, in 1916, the five 
paper-mills and five pulp-mills were in Davis, Halltown, 
Harper's Ferry, Parsons, Richwood and Wellsburg. The 
daily capacity of the paper-mills was one hundred and 
twenty-five tons of board, bag and specialties and of the 
pulp-mills one hundred and thirty-five tons of sulphite- 
fibre and forty-eight tons of ground-wood. The leaders 
were the Parsons Pulp and Paper Company, with sixty 
tons of sulphite-fibre daily and the West Virginia Pulp and 
Paper Company, with forty-five tons of sulphite-fibre. 

After the civil war paper-manufacturing was tentatively 
resumed in the south. About 1870 there were several 
Georgia mills in Savannah, Atlanta, Athens, Conyers and 
Newnan and one on Soap's creek near Atlanta. Either by 

336 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

fire or by bad luck all, except two, soon went out of exist- 
ence. In those days news sold for fourteen cents a pound 
and there was a profit on it of about four cents a pound. 
Saxe Anderson bought the mill on Soap's creek, added a 
pulp-mill and improved the plant; this was the beginning 
of the Marietta Pulp Company. About 1895 the same 
company bought an old mill in Atlanta and converted it 
into a mill for making paper. 

When the twentieth century opened mills in the far 
southern States were: the Stevenson pulp, Stevenson, 




E. L. Embree. 



F. L. Moore. 



Ala. ; the Pensacola, Pensacola, Fla. ; the Fulton, Atlanta, 
Ga. ; the Conyers, Conyers, Ga. ; the Marietta, Marietta, 
Ga. ; the Sewall, Whitesburg, Ga. ; the Fall City, Louis- 
ville, Ky. ; the Wheeling, Wheeling, Mo. ; the Carolina, 
Harts ville, S. C. ; the Chattanooga Pulp, Chattanooga, 
Tenn. ; the Stone Fort, Manchester, Tenn. ; the Tennessee 
Fibre, Memphis, Tenn. ; the Oak Cliff and the Cumberland, 
Sugarland, Texas. In conjunction with these paper mills 
there were five ground-wood pulp mills and three sulphite 
mills. The total daily output of all these establishments 
was insignificant. It amounted to twenty-six thousand 
pounds of ground-wood pulp, thirty-four thousand pounds 

337 



P APER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

of sulphite pulp, twenty-four thousand pounds of cotton 
kull fibre, fifty-nine thousand pounds of manilla, thirty 
thousand pounds of book, two thousand two hundred 
pounds of straw board, eight thousand pounds of straw 
board and sixty-two thousand pounds of book, news, 
hardware, straw, roofing and manilla wrapping. 

By 1916 Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and Missouri were 
no longer paper-manufacturing States. In South Carolina 
the Carolina mill remained; in Tennessee, the Tennessee 
Fibre and the Kingsport Pulp ; in Texas, the Oak Cliff ; in 
Georgia the Pyntree, Kennesaw and Lawrenceville in 
place of those of 1900. North Carolina, Louisiana and 
Mississippi were new paper-manufacturing States. In 
North Carolina were the Champion Fibre Company in 
Canton, with daily capacity of 28,000 pounds of boards, 
250,000 pounds of soda fibre and 250,000 pounds of sul- 
phite fibre; the Halifax and the Roanoke Fibre Board in 
Roanoke Rapids, producing boards, sulphate fibre and 
ground wood. In Mississippi were the paper division of 
the Great Southern Lumber Company and the Louisiana 
Fibre Company both in Bogelusa and both producing con- 
tainer lining and sulphate pulp. Also in Louisiana, in 
Braithwaite, was the idle ground-wood mill of the Colonial 
Paper Company and the paper mill and sulphite mill of 
the E. Z. Opener Bag Company. 

Wisconsin from late beginnings turned into the twentieth 
century as one of the leading states in the industry. 
With its fifty paper-mills in 1916 it ranked only after New 
York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and with its forty- 
seven pulp-mills was next after New York. The mills 
produced all kinds of paper, news, book, writing, bond, 
wrapping, tissue, manila, kraft, parchment, hanging, boards 
and specialties. Their daily capacity was 1,900 tons. The 
pulp-mills had a daily capacity of 1,000 tons of ground- 
wood, eight hundred tons of sulphite-fibre and one hundred 
tons of sulphate-fibre. 

Foremost among the Wisconsin concerns was that of 
the Kimberly-Clark Company, the outgrowth of the energy 
and business foresight of J. A. Kimberly and Charles 
Clark. From 1872 until his death, in 1891, Mr. Clark 

338 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

was a conspicuous figure in Wisconsin paper-manufactur- 
ing-. The company was incorporated in 1907, with J. A= 
Kimberly as president. Its properties in Appleton, Kim- 
berly, Neenah and Niagara were seven paper-mills with 
daily capacity of about two hundred and seventy tons and 
three pulp-mills with daily capacity of nearly two hundred 
tons. Other notable Wisconsin concerns that contributed 
much to the record of the state in the making of paper 
and pulp were the River dale Fibre and Paper Company of 
Appleton; the Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company, with 
mills in Appleton and Kaukauna; the Menasha Paper 
Company, with pulp and paper-mills in Ashland and Lady- 
smith, producing daily fifty tons of paper and one hundred 
and twenty Pfive tons of ground-wood and sulphite; the 
Nekoosa-Edwards Paper Company, producing daily one 
hundred and sixty tons of paper, eighty tons of ground- 
wood and one hundred and fifteen tons of sulphite-fibre; 
the Marathon Paper Mills Company of Wausau, with daily 
capacity of seventy-five tons of paper, twenty tons of 
ground-wood and one hundred and thirty-five tons of 
sulphite. 

Forty-eight paper mills in Michigan had a daily capacity 
of nearly 2,000 tons and nine pulp mills, three hundred and 
fifty tons, all but one hundred tons being sulphite and sul- 
phate-fibre. The character of product covered the widest 
range, from news, book, writing and bond to board, wrap- 
ping, manilla and many specialties. Among the big plants 
were the fourteen mills of the Bryant Paper Company, 
two hundred and fifty tons daily, of book, magazine and 
other high grade papers ; the two mills of the Bardeen 
Paper Company, sixty tons daily of book, writing, wrap- 
ping, etc. ; the tAvo mills of the Eddy Paper Company, 
one hundred tons daily, mostly in boards and cards ; the 
Grand Rapids mill of the American Box Board Company, 
one hundred tons daily; the mill of the Boehme & Rauch 
Company, one hundred and fifty-seven tons daily, paper 
boxes and containers ; the mill of the River Raisin 
Paper Company, one hundred and twenty-five tons of 
boards; the MacSim Bar Paper Company, one hundred 
and ten tons, book and boards. Kalamazoo was the paper- 

339 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

manufacturing center. Thirteen mills were there and their 
capacity was more than a quarter of that of the entire state. 

Minnesota's nine paper-mills had a daily capacity of 
six hundred and fifty tons and her nine pulp-mills, six 
hundred and twenty-five tons. Of the paper most was 
news and book to the amount of about four hundred and 
seventy tons of which the two mills of the Northwest Pa- 
per Company had one hundred and five tons; the big mill 
of the Minnesota & Ontario Power Company, two hun- 
dred and twenty-five tons and the mill of the Watab Pulp 
and Paper Company, ninety tons. The Waldorf Box 
Board Company added one hundred and twenty tons of 
board daily. 

In Ohio, with fifty paper-mills, eleven were run on bond, 




J. A. Kimberly. 
340 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTUR Y 

ledger, linen, writing, book and other fine papers, their 
daily capacity being about six hundred and twenty tons. 
The largest producer in this class was the Champion 
Coated Paper Company of Hamilton, with ten machines 
and daily capacity of two hundred and sixty-two tons. 
Then came the Miami Paper Company, one hundred tons 
and the two mills of the Mead Pulp and Paper Company, 
one hundred tons. Other mills of this kind were small, 
producing from ten to thirty tons daily. News was made 
in one mill only and there it divided, with book, fifteen 




G. E. Bardeen. 



E. R. Behrend. 



tons a day. Mills, devoted, either wholly or in part, to 
board and wrapping, were twenty- four in number, pro- 
ducing daily six hundred tons. Of these only seven were 
of much size: The Lockland of the Richardson Paper 
Company, one hundred and fifty tons ; the Hartje, in Steu- 
benville, one hundred tons ; the mill of the Ohio ' Box 
Board Company, in Rittman, one hundred and ten tons; 
the two Gardner mills in Middletown, one hundred and 
sixty-five tons; the three mills of the Fox Paper Com- 
pany, seventy-five tons. The three active mills of the 
American Straw Board Company had a daily capacity of 

341 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 

one hundred tons. The total productive capacity of all 
the paper mills in the state was 2,000 tons a day, while 
the three pulp-mills could produce forty-four tons. Near- 
ly one half the mills of the state were in the Miami val- 
ley, in Dayton, Franklin. Middletown, Hamilton and other 
places. 

Illinois found its vogue mostly in straw, fibre and other 
boards. Of the twenty-nine mills in the state nineteen 
were devoted, in whole or in large part, to that kind of 
paper, their combined daily capacity being over nine hun- 
dred tons. In other lines, principally roofing, sheathing, 
wrapping, bag and manilla the daily capacity of the other 
mills was about two hundred and fifty tons. Like its 
neighbor, Indiana also found advantage in making various 
kinds of boards, seventeen of its mills having daily capacity 
in that line of a little more than two hundred tons, while 
the others, given over principally to wrapping, straw for 
corrugating, parchment and specialties, produced about 
two hundred and fifty tons daily. Book, news and writing 
was made in two mills. The four mills in Iowa were for 
roofing, wrapping and board, their daily capacity being 
nearly eighty tons. Kansas likewise, with four mills, pro- 
duced only board, building and straw corrugated paper. 

Of six mills in California one only produced news, 
while from that and the others came manilla, tissue, wrap- 
ping, boards, bristol, sheathing, felts and other varieties. 
The daily capacity of the six was 514,000 pounds. The 
Crown Willamette Paper Company, of which Wm. Pierce 
Johnson was president, had the news and tissue producing 
mill, and in connection therewith were pulp mills with 
daily capacity of 40,000 pounds of ground-wood fibre and 
50,000 of sulphite fibre. The largest producers were the 
California Paper and Board mills, 200,000' pounds daily, 
and the Southern Board and Paper Mills, 110,000 
pounds daily. Also on the Pacific coast in 1916 were other 
enterprises of the Crown Willamette Paper Company. 
These were three paper-mills and eight pulp-mills with 
daily capacity of 400,000 pounds of news, 110,000 pounds 
of manilla, wrapping, etc., 220,000 pounds of ground-wood 
and 180,000 pounds of sulphite fibre ; and, in Washington, 

342 



INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

one paper-mill with daily capacity of 360,000 pounds of 
news, manilla, etc., and one pulp mill with daily capacity of 
140,000 pounds of ground-wood and 175,000 pounds of 
sulphite fibre. With the two paper mills and the two pulp 
mills of the Hawley Pulp and Paper Company in Oregon 
and in Washington, the Everett, the Inland Empire and the 
Northern Board paper-mills and the Everett soda-fibre 
mill the Pacific coast was well provided. 

This broad, review of the industry in 1916 may here 
fittingly bring its history to a conclusion. It has been a 
long way to travel, and the changes in the two hundred 
and twenty-five years that have been passed in retrospect, 
have been many and of surpassing interest. Altogether 
there is an amazing comparison between the solitary Rit- 




Arthur B. Daniels. 
343 



PAPER MANUFACTURING in the UNITED STATES 



tenhouse mill of 1690, worth a few hundred dollars, em- 
ploying three men, producing annually, perhaps, fifteen 
hundred reams of paper and supplying only the needs of a 
small community and, at 
the other end of the line, 
the great business of the 
twentieth century. The first 
mills made little else than 
news, book and writing 
paper, fullers' press-boards 
and bonnet-boards, and 
those in limited quantities. 
The mills in the United 
States in 1916 made two 
hundred and fifty different 
kinds of papers, while the 
articles manufactured from 
paper as their raw material 
numbered several hundred. 
The seven hundred estab- 
lishments of 1916, with 
paper and pulp mills, 

represented an investment in capital of more than 
$550,000,000; employed 100,000 persons; afforded busi- 
ness opportunities to thousands of others in the handling 
of their product ; were the main support of hundreds of 
other enterprises manufacturing machinery and supplying 
raw materials ; had a daily capacity of about 20,000 tons 
of paper, and annually produced to the value of nearly 
$350,000,000. 




George A. Whiting. 



344 



INDEX 

Adams & Bishop 180 Bemis family 80, 135, 136 

Adams, Peter 179, 257 Bemis Mill 81 

Aetna Mill 242 Bemis Paper Co 283 

Albany Felt Co 182 Benninghofen, John W 182 

Albion Mill 248 Berkshire County.. . . 127, 196, 241 

Albion Paper Co 283 Berlin Mills Co 323 

Allan & Jones 331 Biddis, John 98 

Allen, Stephen M 226 Bird family. . .132, 189, 256-7, 325 

Alpena (Mich.) Pulp Mill... 234 Blanchard, The 137 

American Box Board Co 339 Boehme & Rauch Co 339 

American Paper Board Ass'n 312 Boies & Clark 325 

American Paper & Pulp Ass'n 299 Boies & McLean 325 

American Straw Board Co. . . 306 Boies & Tileston 325 

American Wood Paper Co.... 230 Boies, Jeremiah L....24, 132, 325 

American Writing Paper Co. 304 Boies, John 23, 24, 51, 83 

Ameses, The 124-5, 176, 187 Bowman, Jacob 159 

Ames Wood Pulp Co 281 Bowman, William 125 

Amies, Thomas 162 Boyce, James 23 

Anderson, Saxe 337 Boyd, Robert 51 

Antes, Henry 10 Bradford, Andrew. . .9, 16, 17, 70 

Antietam Mill 335 Bradford, William. 3, 6, 15, 16, 17 

Appleton Wire Works 185-6 Brewer, Chauncey 125 

Appleton, Wis 281 Brown & Sellers 185 

Appleton Woolen Mills 182 Brown Paper Co., L. L.. .247, 301 

Aroostook Mill 327 Brown, Thomas 11 

Asbestos Paper 11 Brownville Box & Paper Co. . 263 

Augustine Mill 324 Brighter, John 11 

Austin, Cyrus 98 Bryant Paper Co 310, 339 

Buchanan & Bolt Wire Co. . . 184-5 

Babcock, Samuel 85 Buchanans, The 184 

Bagg, Aaron 245 Buel> David 117 

Baldwin, W. & Co 180 Bu u; s Mill 260 

Baltimore Roofing BunC6) Charles 90 

& Asbestos Co 336 Burbank Mill 253 

Barber, O. C 306 Burbanks,. . . .58, 87, 137, 253, 303 

Barclay, Henry 179 BurgesS) Hugh 226 

Bardeen Paper Co 339 Burgess Sulphite Fibre Co.. . . 323 

Bayless Manufacturing Co... 333 Butler & Hudson 202 

Bay State Mill 243 B utler, John 90 

Beach, Hommerken & Kearney 180 

Beach, Moses Y 180, 189 Cabbie Excelsior Wire 

Beardslee, George W 225 Manufacturing Co 186 

Beaver, John 159 Cabbie, William 184 

Becketts, The 279 Cady, Eleazer 202 

Becking, Frederick 49 Calder, James 52 

Bedford Pulp & Paper Co. . . . 336 Calhoun, John 161 

Beebe & Holbrook 284 California 342 

Bellamy, William 39 California Paper & Board Mills 342 



346 INDEX 

Cameron, D 280 Columbia Paper Co 336 

Canadian Reciprocity 317 Columbia River Paper Co 310 

Carew Manufacturing Co 250 Columbian Straw Paper Co.. 312 

Carnes, John 98, 100 Connecticut 35, 89, 139, 202 

Carney, Michael 80, 97 257, 274, 327 

Carolina Mill 337 Connecticut River Paper Co. . 284 

Carpenter, Samuel 34 Consolidations 302 

Carsons, The 129 Consolidated S. O. S. Bag Co. 308 

Carthage Sulphite Continental Paper Bag Co. . . . 309 

Pulp & Paper Co 330 Continental Wall Paper Co. . . 312 

Case, A. Wells 327 Conyers Mill 337 

Caswell, Gurdon and Henry. 152 Copsecook Mill 322 

Cataract Manufacturing Co.. . 331 Costs 314 

Census Statistics 106, 122, 141 Coulter, John 159 

209, 239, 244, 259, 271, 289, 314 Cox family, The.... 125, 132-9, 189 

Centennial Mill "... 244 Craig, Elijah 98 

Chamberlain, Joseph 257 Cranes, The 114, 127, 243 

Champion Coated Paper Co.. 341 Crehores, The 132, 198-9 

Champion Fibre Co 310, 338 Crevacceur, J. Hector St. John 213 

Champion-International Co. . . 325 Crocker, Alvah 238, 253 

Champion Paper Co 330 Crocker, Burbank & Co. . .253, 325 

Chattanooga Pulp Mill 337 Crocker Manufacturing Co.... 248 

Chelsea Manufacturing Co 257 Crocker-McElwain Co 248 

Chemical Paper Mfg. Co 328 Crombie, J. H 281 

Cheney-Bigelow Wire Works. 185 Crown-Columbia 

Chestertown mill 335 Pulp & Paper Co 310 

Childs, George W 334 Crown Paper Co 310 

Chisholm, Hugh J 303 Crown Willamette Paper Co.. 342 

Chittenden, George 156 Cumberland Mill 337 

Church, Samuel and Luman. . 130 Curtis family, The 135, 198, 303 

Cincinnati Steam Paper Mill. . 167 Curtisville Pulp-Mill 235 

Clapp, Keeney & Co 202 Cylinder Machine, First 175 

Claremont Mill 323 

Clark, Charles 338 Davis & Co, F. M 281 

Clark, Henry W 155 Davis, John B 204 

Clark, John 114, 156 Day, Joseph F 139 

Clarke & Hawes Co 278 Dayton Paper Mills 276 

Clarke, Richard 23, 24 Defiance Mill 244 

Cliff Paper Co 331 De Grasse Mill 328-30 

Cobbossee Mill 327 Delaware 92, 157, 275, 334 

Coles, Abraham 156 Delaware Mill 332 

Colin Gardner Paper Co 280 Denison & Co \ 273 

Collier, John 26 Denison & Turner 281 

Collins Paper Co 247 Dering, Henry 19, 21 

Colonial mills 18 DeWees family, The 10, 70 

Colonial Paper Co 338 De Witt Wire Cloth Co 184-6 

Colonial printing 2, 17 Dexter, Charles H 258 

Coltsville Mill 243 Dexter Sulphite 

Columbia County 202, 259, 260 Pulp & Paper Co 328 

Columbia Mill, Lee, Mass 196 Dickinson, John , , 174 



INDEX 



347 



Dill & Collins Co 333 

District of Columbia 

Paper Manufacturing Co . . . 334 

Dodge, Joseph 132 

Dodge, Philip T 303 

Dorsett, James 37 

Duckett, John B 162 

Dupont & Co 169 

Durant, William 52 

Duval, Joseph 165 

Eagle Paper Co 280 

Eagle Mill 150, 242 

Eastern Box Board Ass'n.... 312 

Eastern Manufacturing Co 301 

Eastwood, John 184-6 

Eckstein, Samuel 189, 266 

Eddy Paper Co 339 

Eden Vale Mill 83 

Eliot, Simon 135 

Elms, Thomas 49 

Ensign, Perley 92 

Enterprise Mill 242 

Ephrata Mill L . . .29, 30-32 

Equipment 146, 296 

European War 318 

Everett Mills 343 

Excello Mill 277 

Exports 291 

E. Z. Opener Bag Co 338 

Fall City Mill 337 

Fall Mountain Mill 324 

Faneuil, Benjamin 19-21 

Feinour & Nixon 223-8 

Felt Manufacturing 181 

Ferra, John 163 

Fibre and Manilla Association 312 

Field, Cyrus W 197, 255 

Finch, Pruyn & Co 310, 328 

Fisher, Miers 92 

Fitchburg Duck Mills 182 

Fitchburg, Mass., Mills 254 

Fitchburg Paper Co 325 

Fitzdale Mill 324 

Flat Rock Mills. . . .223-8, 266, 334 

Fleet, Thomas 45 

Fletcher, George N 234 

Foreign Trade 291 

Fort Edward Milt 328 



Fourdriniers 172-9, 293-6 

Fox Paper Co 341 

Fox River 281 

Franklin, Benjamin 13, 92 

Franklin Mill 248 

Franklin Paper Co 280-3 

Friend, George H 279 

Frontenac Paper Co 263 

Hawes Co., C. L 278 

Frost, Joshua 125 

Fry, Richard 25-28 

Fuller, Amasa 132 

Fuller, Andrew — 181 

Fulton Mill "... 337 

Funk, Jacob and Samuel 29 

Gaine, Hugh 36, 60 

Gardiner Paper Co 310, 341 

Gardiner, Robt H 139 

Garrett, Edwin 165 

Gaskill, C. B 331 

General Paper Co 312 

Georgia 336 

Gibbs, John 133 

Gilpin Mill 157 

Gilpins, The 92, 175 

Gleeson, Thomas E 186 

Glen Manufacturing Co 294 

Glen Mill 323 

Glens Falls Paper Mill Co. 294, 328 

Globe Paper Co 263 

Goddard, William 96 

Goodwins, The 90, 257 

Gore, Christopher 83 

Gorgas, John 10 

Gould Paper Co 328-9 

Government Mill 243 

Graham, Thomas 167, 276 

Grant, Moses 135 

Grant, Warren & Co 273 

Great Falls Co 323 

Great Northern Paper Co. 309-21 
Great Southern Lumber Co. . . 338 

Greenleaf & Taylor 126, 246 

Greenleaf, Orick H 246 

Gunpowder Mill ,. 335 

Halifax Mills 338 

Hall, Lewis A.. 331 

Hamilton & Wright 203 



348 INDEX 

Hammermill Paper Co 333 Humphreysville Mill 140, 202 

Hampden Paper Co 247, 283-4 Huntington, Andrew 141 

Hampshire Paper Co 249, 251 Hurd, William 135 

Hancock, Thomas 19, 22 Hurlbut, Thomas 131, 197 

Hand-made paper 301 Hurlburt Manufacturing Co.. 202 

Hanna, Daniel R 330 ' . 

TT o i ots\ Illinois 342 

Hanna, Samuel 260 

TT ,. t • p r- ->77 Imperial Coating Mills 310 

Harding, Irwin & Co 277 *" 8 

TT ,. -r, n -vtq Imports 219,291,317 

Harding Paper Co 278 f. ' 

TT . „ n 110 Indiana 206, 342 

Harris & Cox toy . 

Inland Empire Mills 343 

Interlake Pulp & Paper Co... 313 



Harris, W. 168 

Hartje Mills 341 

TT .. .., n , AC -301 International Paper Co.. 302, 321-8 

Hastings, Arthur C 305, 331 * 

tt i mi d -o An noz International Sulphite Fibre 

Haverhill Box Board Co 325 v 

&, Paper Co 234 

Inventors 188-9 

Iowa 342 



Hawley Pulp & Paper Co 343 

Hayes, O. B 167 

Hazleton, John 23 

TT , , A . iao Irwin, George H 277 

Hecksher, August 308 ' 5 

Heller & Merz 295 Iv ^ Ml11 12 ' 14 ' 53 " 7 ' 69 ' 205 

Henchman, Daniel 19,22-7 Jackson & Sharpless 59 

Henr y Ml11 323 Jackson, Samuel 95, 163 

Hill & Murray 331 Jacob & Hkks m 

Hill, John M 168 Jefferson Paper Co 264 

Hoagland, Daniel 156 Jessup & Moofe ^ m _ 6 

Holbrook, George B 284 Jessup> A]fred fi 265 

Holgan, John 39 John Edwards M fg. Co 310 

Hollander engines 58, 171 Johns . Manvilie Co-> R w . ,., 332 

Hollingsworths. .24, 132, 220, 325 Johnsotlj Albert 181 

Hollingsworth & Vose Co 326 Johnson) Wm pierce 342 

Hollingsworth & Whitney. . .322-7 JoneSj Richard L 2S7 

Hollis, Thomas 282 JoneSj Walter 331 

Holly well Mill 222 Journalism> Paper Trade ^g 

Holmes, Joseph E 225 

Holt, John 50 Kamargo Mill 261 

Holyoke, Mass 244, 283-4 Kansas 342 

Holyoke Paper Co 246 Katz, Henry 49 

Holyoke Wire Works 184 Keen, Morris L 227 

Houghton, Thomas 72, 85, 137 Keller, Friedrich Gottlob 234 

Howard & Lathrop 178 Kendall, Amos 169 

Howard, Thomas 282 Kenmore Mill 336 

Howe & Goddard 181 Kennesaw Mill 338 

Howe, Henry P 135 Kentucky 97, 169, 209 

Howells, Frank 165 Kimberly-Clark Co 281,338 

Hubbard, Amos H 141, 180 Kinsey, Charles 174, 189 

Hubbard, Thomas 36 Kingsland, J. & R 183 

Hudson River Mill 328 Kingsport Pulp Mill 338 

Hudson River Pulp & Knox, D. S 160 

Paper Co 238, 294 Knox Woolen Co 182 

Hudsons, The 90, 180, 202 Knowlton & Rice 153, 261 

Humphreys, David 139 Knowlton Brothers. 154, 261-3, 328 



INDEX 



349 



Knowlton, F. D 152 

Koch, Louis 226 

Kugler, Matthias 165 

Laflins, The 196 

Langstroth, Thomas 174 

Laurie, Adam 279 

Laurenceville Mill 338 

Ledyard, Austin 89 

Leffingwell, Christopher 35 

Lennie Mills 94 

Lewis family 94, 279 

Lewis Wire Works 186 

Lindsay Wire Weaving Co.. . . 186 

Little, Arthur D 301 

Livingston, R. R 99 

Lockland Mill 341 

Lockport Felt Co 182 

Lockwood, Howard 298 

Long Paper Co., John 334 

Loomis family 153 

Looseley, Charles 49 

Lore, M 160 

Loudon, Samuel 51 

Louisianna Fibre Co. 338 

Low, Asa 274 

Ludington & Garland 280 

Luke, John G 310 

Lungren, John 94 

Lydig, David 145 

Lyon, Matthew 90, 139, 225 

Maclntire, J. J 331 

Mac Sim Bar Paper Co 339 

MoCluskey & Sons, H. & T. . . 186 

McDougal, James 80 

McDowells, The 266-7 

McEwans, The 168, 332 

McLean, Hugh 24, 51, 132 

McMurray, John 184 

Magaw, William 221 

Maine 24-7, 42, 139, 273, 301 

Manufacturers' Investment Co. 313 

Marathon Paper Mills Co 339 

Marietta Pulp Co 337 

Markle & Drum 160 

Markle, Joseph 121 

Martin, Walter 156 

Martin, William 162 

Maryland 96, 334 



Massachusetts . . .19, 80, 114, 124-7 
143, 196-9, 241, 274, 283, 324 
Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology 301 

Massasoit Paper Mfg. Co 247 

Matson, Aaron 94 

Matthews, John 94 

Mead Pulp & Paper Co 341 

Mead, D. E 277 

Megargee Brothers 228, 265 

Menasha Paper Co 339 

Miami Paper Co 341 

Michigan 234, 339 

Middletown Paper Bag Co.. .. 310 
Miller Paper Co., Frank P.. .. 333 

Miller, Warner 238 

Millinocket 309 

Mills, D. O g 331 

Milton, Mass.. 21-4, 4/i, 51, 256, 325 

Minnesota 340 

Minnesota & 

Ontario Power Co 340 

Mitchell, Sidney 308 

Modes, The 163 

Montague Paper Co 238 

Mooney, Isaac 206 

Moore, Bloomfield H 265 

Moore, Uriah 83 

Morgan, J. C 331 

Morris & Rogers 169 

Morrison & Case Paper Co... 310 
Morss & Whyte 184 

Nashua River Paper Co 325 

National Board & Paper Co.. . 312 

National Wall Paper Co 312 

Nekoosa-Edwards 

Paper Co 310, 339 

Newcomb, Charles C 181 

New Hampshire 274, 313, 323 

New Jersey 17, 275, 332 

Newspaper from Straw Pulp. 222 
News Print Manufacturers' 

Association 300 

Newton Brothers 248 

New York, 16, 36, 91, 115, 148, 

275, 259, 328 
New York & Pennsylvania Co. 332 

Niagara Falls Mill 328 

Niagara Falls Paper C» 331 



350 



INDEX 



Niagara Glazed Paper Co 331 

Niagara Wood Paper Co 331 

Nichols & Kendall 253 

Nixon, Martin & William H.228, 
265- , 331 

Noonan & McNab 280 

North Carolina 97 

Northwest Paper Co 340 

Norton, J. L 331 

Norton, Josiah 139 

Oak Cliff Mill 337 

Oakland Paper Co 202 

Odell Manufacturing Co 323 

Oglesby Paper Co 280 

Ohio 165, 276, 340 

Ohio Box Board Co 341 

Old Berkshire Mill 244 

Old Red Mill 243 

Old Red Neenah Mill 281 

Olney, Christopher 89 

Onderdonk, Hendrich 36, 60 

O'Neil Wire Works, Joseph.. 186 

Ontario Paper Co 263 

Outterson, James A 330 

Owen, Charles M 130, 197 

Oxford Paper Co 321 

Pacific Coast 342 

Pack, Albert 234 

Pagenstechers, The 303,235 

Paine, Augustus G 309, 332 

Palisade Mill 327 

Paper City, The 244 

Paper Mill Run 3, 9 

Paper Products Co 312 

Paper, Quality of Early 74 

Paper Trade Journal, The 298 

Paper Trade Reporter, The. . . 298 

Parker, Jonas 135 

Parker, William 83 

Parks, Frederick H 303 

Parks, John H 312 

Parks, William 33 

Parsons, Joseph C 248 

Parsons Pulp & Paper Co.... 336 
Patents, 98, 135, 174, 186, 214, 220-6 

Patten, Nathaniel 80 

Pejepscot Paper Co 321 

Pennsylvania 1, 3, 10-14, 29, 

205, 221-7, 264, 275, 332 



Pensacola Mill 337 

Persee & Brooks. 258 

Pettebone Paper Co 330 

Phelps & Spafford 181 

Philadelphia Mfg. Co 230 

Philadelphia Paper Mfg. Co. 332 

Phillips & Spear 167 

Phillipsdale Mill 327 

Phillips, Gillam 19-21 

Phillips, Samuel 85, 137 

Pickering Mill 180 

Pierce, William 52 

Piermont Paper Co 329 

Pioneer Mill 153 

Pitkin, Elisha 156 

Platner & Smith 242 

Pooling, Parks 312 

Poor, Daniel 137 

Port Edwards Fibre Co 310 

Porters, The 150-5 

Prices.. 35-9, 70-2, 119, 121, 285-7 
297, 319. 

Prieger, Ernest 280 

Providence Paper Mills 334 

Public Ledger Mills 334 

Publishers Paper Co 313 

Pusey & Jones Co 295 

Pyntree Mill 338 

Quigley, John F 331 

Radnor Mill 336 

Rags. . . .28, 39, 60-7, 72, 113-8, 159 
219, 319 

Ramage, James 249 

Rand & Stockbridge 139 

Readen, John 69 

Reed Wire Works 186 

Remingtons, The 262, 328, 330 

Remsen, Henry 36, 60 

Rhode Island 89, 139, 143, 327 

Rice, Alexander H 199 

Rice, Barton & Fales 295 

Rice, Clark 153, 188 

Rice, Thomas 199 

Richards, Francis 322 

Richardson Paper Co 341 

Richmond Paper Co 231 

Rigdon, Thomas P 279 

Rittenhouse 3-10, 70, 266 

Riverdale Fibre & Paper Co... 339 



INDEX 



351 



River Raisin Paper Co 339 

Riverside Paper Co 283 

Riverton Co 327 

Roanoke Fibre Board Mill... 338 

Robert, Nicholas Louis 172 

Roberts, Sydney 282 

Roberts & Son, John 133 

Robertson, Henry M 331 

Rochester, Nathaniel 148 

Rock City Paper Mfg. Co.... 168 

Rockland Mill 334 

Rocky River Paper Co 281 

Rogers family 160, 202 

Rossmans 260 

Russell, William A 238, 303 

Rumford Falls Paper Co 295 

St. Lawrence Paper Co 263 

St. Croix Paper Co 310, 321 

St. Regis Paper Co 328-9 

Sanderson, Isaac 132, 178 

Saur, Christopher 31-3, 70 

Savels, John 132, 139 

Schenck, Garrett 309 

Schcelkopf, J. F 331 

Scott, John 160, 161 

Sellers family 54-6, 189,226 

Sewell Mill 337 

Seymour, Ashbel 92 

Seymour Paper Co 259, 301 

Sharpless, Jonathan 95, 163 

Sheffield & Son, J. B 179 

Shipley, Stephen 255 

Shryock, George A 161, 221 

Shuler & Benninghofen 182 

Simonds, Case & Co 156 

Singley Pulp & Paper Co 313 

Singerley, William M 335 

Sizes of Paper 120 

Slater, John 52 

Smith & Bassett 203 

Smith & Co., Bradner 281 

Smith & Winchester 180 

Smith, Abijah 23 

Smith, Charles 184 

Smith, Elizur 241 

Smith, Jeremiah 23, 24, 132 

Smith Paper Co 235, 241 

Smith, Joseph W 162 

Snider Mills 280 



Snow, Benjamin 255 

Soda Pulp 228 

Southern Board & Paper Mills 342 

Southern Paper Mills 268 

Southworth Brothers. . 249 

Southworth Mfg. Co 249 

Sower, Christopher 31 

Speed of Machines 294 

Standard Straw Board Co 307 

Standard Wire Works 184-6 

Staniar & Laffey Wire Co.. . .184-6 

Staniar, William 182 

Statistics 289, 314, 321 

Steadman, E. H 169 

Steadman, Ebenezer 132 

Stebbins, Daniel 225 

Steele, George F 300 

Stephens & Thomas 183 

Stevenson Pulp Mill 337 

Straw-board 305 

Straw paper 202, 221, 260 

Streeper, William 10 

Stone Fort Mill 337 

Sullivan, John 132 

Sulphite Fiber 230-4 

Sunnydale Mill 163 

Superior Paper Co.. 310 

Susquehanna Water 

Power & Paper Co 334 

Symonds, Charles H. & Jesse. 155 

Taggarts Brothers Co 263 

Taggarts Paper Co 263 

Talbot county Mill 335 

Tammerts, John C 331 

Tariff duties. 102, 112, 195, 285, 318 

Taylor, Mahlon 91 

Technical Training 301 

Tempest, Francis 165 

Tennessee 167, 269 

Tennessee Fibre Mill 337 

Thatcher, Samuel 196 

Thilmany Pulp & Paper Co... 339 

Thistle Wire Co 186 

Thomas, Isaiah 85, 109 

Thomas, Samuel T 181 

Thomson, Peter G 280 

Thurbers, The 89 

Tidewater Mill 328 

Tileston & Hollingsworth 325 



352 



TNDEX 



Tileston, Edmund 132 

Tilghman, Benjamin C 230 

Tissue Paper Trust 313 

Tompkins, Staats D 204, 259 

Tonawanda Board & Pulp Co. 329 

Trade Marks 141, 266 

Tresse, Thomas 36 

Trimble, William 94 

Trueman, Morris 94 

Tunis, Abraham 10 

Turkey Mill 242 

Turner, Robert 3, 6 

Turners Falls Pulp Co 238 

Tyler Wire Works 186 

Tytus Paper Co 280, 310 

Union Bag & Paper Co 308 

Union Mill 242 

Union Paper Mfg Co 283 

Union Straw Board Co 306 

Union Waxed 

& Parchment Paper Co 313 

United Box Board 

& Paper Co 307 

United Box Board Co 308 

United Paperboard Co.... 308, 332 

United Paper Co 303 

University of Maine 301 

University of Wisconsin 301 

Utah 282 

Valentine, John 125 

Value of Early Mills.. .3, 6, 8, 10, 
12, 26, 145, 193 

Van De Carrs 260 

Van Houten, Cornelius 183 

Vermont 90, 274, 324 

Virginia 33-5, 336 

Voelter, Henry 234 

Vose, Daniel 24, 132, 326 

Wages 72 

Waldo, Samuel 24-8 

Waldorf Box Board Co 340 

Walker, Zadoc 160 

Wallace family 255-6 

Wallsmith 165 

Ware, John 83, 135 

Warren & Co., S. D 321 

Warrens, The 133 

Watab Pulp & Paper Co 340 



Waterman, Richard 139, 188 

Water Marks, Early.... 9, 13, 30 

Watertown, N. Y 262 

Watertown Paper Co 263 

Watson Co., H. F 334 

Watson, Ebenezer 89 

Watt, Charles 226 

Webster, Ensign & Seymour.. 155 

Websters, The 92 

Westbrook, Thomas 24 

West End Paper Co 330 

Western Box Board Co 312 

West Fitchburg Paper Co.... 255 

Weston & Mead 277 

Weston, Byron 244 

West Virginia 208, 336 

West Va. Pulp & Paper Co.. 310-36 

Wheaton & Eddy 139 

Wheeling Mill 337 

Wheelwright, Charles S 231 

Wheelwright Paper Co., 325 

Whipple, Milton D 226 

Whiteman, William S 168, 269 

White Mountain Paper Co.... 312 

Whiting Paper Co 247 

Whitney, Leonard 326 

Willamette Pulp & Paper Co.. 294 

Willard, John .114, 129 

Willcox family, 11, 13, 70, 94, 205 

Willcox Mills 12-4, 53-7, 69 

Windsor Locks, Conn 258 

Wisconsin 280, 338 

Wissahickon Creek 3, 9 

Wiswall, Henry 114 

Wiswell, Augustus C 197 

WTswell, Enoch 83 

Wood & Remington 156 

Woodbine Mill 335 

Woodman, Henry 23 

Wood-Pulp 225 

Woodruff & Pettebone 330 

Woodruff, L. C 155 

Woods Falls Mill 328 

Wooster, Lewis 225 

Workman, Alfred '.. 186 

Wright, Eleazer 85 

Yarnall, Isaac 169 

York Haven Paper Co 334 

Youngs, The 335 



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